Methods And Systems For Managing Data

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for managing data, such as metadata. In one exemplary method, metadata from files created by several different software applications are captured, and the captured metadata is searched. The type of information in metadata for one type of file differs from the type of information in metadata for another type of file. Other methods are described and data processing systems and machine readable media are also described.

This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 11/112,350, filed on Apr. 22, 2005, which is acontinuation-in-part of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/877,584, filed on Jun. 25, 2004. This application also claimspriority to co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.60/643,087 filed on Jan. 7, 2005, which provisional application isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety; this applicationclaims the benefit of the provisional's filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e). This present application hereby claims the benefit of theseearlier filing dates under 35 U.S.C. § 120.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Modern data processing systems, such as general purpose computersystems, allow the users of such systems to create a variety ofdifferent types of data files. For example, a typical user of a dataprocessing system may create text files with a word processing programsuch as Microsoft Word or may create an image file with an imageprocessing program such as Adobe's PhotoShop. Numerous other types offiles are capable of being created or modified, edited, and otherwiseused by one or more users for a typical data processing system. Thelarge number of the different types of files that can be created ormodified can present a challenge to a typical user who is seeking tofind a particular file which has been created.

Modern data processing systems often include a file management systemwhich allows a user to place files in various directories orsubdirectories (e.g. folders) and allows a user to give the file a name.Further, these file management systems often allow a user to find a fileby searching for the file's name, or the date of creation, or the dateof modification, or the type of file. An example of such a filemanagement system is the Finder program which operates on Macintoshcomputers from Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. Another exampleof a file management system program is the Windows Explorer programwhich operates on the Windows operating system from MicrosoftCorporation of Redmond, Wash. Both the Finder program and the WindowsExplorer program include a find command which allows a user to searchfor files by various criteria including a file name or a date ofcreation or a date of modification or the type of file. However, thissearch capability searches through information which is the same foreach file, regardless of the type of file. Thus, for example, thesearchable data for a Microsoft Word file is the same as the searchabledata for an Adobe PhotoShop file, and this data typically includes thefile name, the type of file, the date of creation, the date of lastmodification, the size of the file and certain other parameters whichmay be maintained for the file by the file management system.

Certain presently existing application programs allow a user to maintaindata about a particular file. This data about a particular file may beconsidered metadata because it is data about other data. This metadatafor a particular file may include information about the author of afile, a summary of the document, and various other types of information.A program such as Microsoft Word may automatically create some of thisdata when a user creates a file and the user may add additional data oredit the data by selecting the “property sheet” from a menu selection inMicrosoft Word. The property sheets in Microsoft Word allow a user tocreate metadata for a particular file or document. However, in existingsystems, a user is not able to search for metadata across a variety ofdifferent applications using one search request from the user.Furthermore, existing systems can perform one search for data files, butthis search does not also include searching through metadata for thosefiles.

SUMMARY OF THE DESCRIPTION

Methods for managing data in a data processing system and systems formanaging data are described herein.

According to one aspect described herein, an exemplary embodimentincludes a hierarchy of saved search folders, which may be referred toas “smart” folders. A first folder represents a first search query, anda second folder represents a second search query. The second folder maybe nested graphically within the first folder or otherwise portrayed ina predetermined hierarchical relationship between the two folders.Opening the first folder reveals the search results of a first searchquery and opening the second folder displays the search results of thesecond search query. The predetermined relationship between the foldersmay be defined by user metadata. This embodiment allows the use ofrelationships of metadata to build a view of user files and to allow theuser to browse the files within a system using that view. In oneparticular embodiment, the second folder may be portrayed in a graphicaluser interface system as a subfolder of the first folder. The view offiles provided by the user metadata and the saved search folders may bedifferent than a view provided by a file management system (e.g. WindowsExplorer or the Finder on a Macintosh) which provides a graphical viewbased on the relative location in a file directory.

In another aspect of this description, an exemplary method of processinga result of a search operation includes receiving an input of a searchoperation and performing the search operation, and displaying a list ofresults from the search operation, where the list presents N items whichis less than M items found from the search operation. In one embodiment,the N items are the N most relevant hits in the results. The list istypically grouped by categories and the number of items within eachcategory is also limited to less than N. Typically the list is anon-scrollable list which is sorted by recency and relevance andincludes a command to show all items since less than all items are shownin the list.

In another aspect of the disclosure, an exemplary embodiment of a methodfor handling data includes storing on a volume an index created fromfiles and metadata for the files with an operating system and making thevolume available for distribution to licensees or customers. Typically,the index is created for all user related files beyond merely helpfiles, such as all files normally accessible to a user through thestandard use of word processing programs, spreadsheet programs,presentation programs, graphics programs or other types of software.This index is stored with the user related files and with an operatingsystem on a volume, which is made available for distribution tolicensees or customers. These volumes may, for example, be CD ROMs orDVD ROMs or a bootable magnetic hard drive which is shipped with a newlymanufactured computer system.

In another aspect of the disclosure, an exemplary embodiment of a methodfor processing data includes displaying an open file window, displayinga search input field to allow entry of a search query to find a filewithin the open file window, receiving a search query and performing asearch, and displaying a result of a search within the open file window.Typically, the open file window is invoked by using a “open” command oran “open file” command from an application program such as a wordprocessing program (e.g. Microsoft Word) or a spreadsheet program (e.g.Excel), or a presentation program (e.g. Keynote or PowerPoint), or agraphics program (e.g. PhotoShop), etc. The open file window typicallyprovides an interface allowing the user to select the folder withinwhich files may exist. The user can select the file which is displayedwithin a particular folder and then activate an “open” button to causethe file to be opened within the application from which the open filewindow was invoked.

According to another aspect of the present description, an exemplaryembodiment of a method for processing data includes displaying textwithin a text processing application, receiving a selection of at leastsome of the text, receiving a selection of a command to search aplurality of files using the selection, and displaying results of asearch of the plurality of files. The selection may be through a pop-upmenu which appears associated with the selected text within the textprocessing application, such as a word processing application or anemail application.

In another aspect of the present disclosure, an exemplary method forprocessing data includes displaying a search input parameter andinterface which displays an expandable plurality of metadata searchattributes, and receiving a selection of a particular metadata searchattribute from the display of the expandable plurality of metadataattributes. The selection of a particular metadata search attribute istypically used in forming a search query.

In another aspect of the present description, an exemplary embodiment ofa method for processing data includes receiving a command to perform asearch for content and/or metadata of content, displaying search resultsand a search window, creating or receiving new documents, some of whichmay match or satisfy the search query while the search window is open,and updating the search results in the search window dynamically as thenew documents are created or received. New documents which match thesearch query, as they are created or received, appear within the searchwindow without having to open or close the search window or withouthaving to select a command to refresh the search window. Thus, itappears as if the search window is updated live as new documents arecreated or received in the system.

A method of managing data in one exemplary embodiment includes capturingmetadata from a plurality of files having different file types (andhaving different metadata content for the different file types) orcreated by a plurality of different software applications which executeon a data processing system. The type of information in the metadata forthe files of a first software application differs from the type ofinformation in metadata for files of a second software application. Thiscaptured metadata may be searched. In one embodiment, this search mayoccur concurrently for all of the metadata from the different filescreated by or used by the different software applications. In oneimplementation of this method, a single search interface may be providedto search all of the metadata for all of the different files created bythe different software applications, thereby allowing a single search tosearch through all of the metadata for all of the files created by thedifferent software applications. Further, the single search may alsosearch through non-metadata such as the indexed (or non-indexed) contentof the actual data files.

According to another aspect of the invention, an exemplary methodincludes capturing metadata from a plurality of different files createdby a plurality of different software applications and storing themetadata on a storage medium in a flat file format. Another aspectrelates to a flat file format for the metadata on the storage medium.

Another aspect of the present invention relates to various userinterfaces which may be provided by a system to allow a user to searchthrough the metadata. In one exemplary embodiment of such a userinterface, the method includes capturing metadata from a plurality offiles created by a plurality of different software applications anddisplaying a search input interface for searching through the metadata,wherein the type of information in metadata for files of a firstsoftware application differs from the type of information in metadatafor files of a second software application. Various implementations ofuser interfaces are discussed for search input and also for thepresentation (e.g. display) of search results. For example, the searchresults may be displayed in multiple different formats (e.g. list view,icon view, column view) and they may be displayed with headers or titleswhich separate the groups of matches in a search results list. Further,the displayed results may be limited to a predetermined number (or adynamically generated number) for each category so that a limitedviewing can still display multiple categories within a search resultwindow. Further, a search query can be saved as a folder which appearswithin a user configurable portion of the search results window, and aselection of the folder causes another search to be performed using thesaved search query (sometimes also referred to as search criteria). Adisplay of the search results from the saved search query can then besorted or further searched to limit the results to a subset of theoriginal matches from the saved search query. Numerous other userinterface implementations are shown and described. Another userinterface feature includes the ability to provide both a list view andanother view (e.g. icon view) for different portions (e.g. differentcategories) of a search results window.

Another aspect of the present invention relates to a softwarearchitecture for managing metadata. One exemplary embodiment of thisarchitecture includes a first plurality of application programs whichare capable of creating a plurality of different data files and ametadata management program which is coupled through programminginterfaces with the first plurality of application programs and which iscoupled to a file system storage of metadata which is captured fromfiles created by the first plurality of application programs. Normally,the type of information in metadata for files of a first applicationprogram differs from the type of information in metadata for files of asecond application program. The metadata management program is alsocoupled to other (non-metadata) sources of information about the datafiles such as an indexed database of the full text content of the datafiles and software which is capable of searching this indexed database.Search queries which are directed to the metadata may also beconcurrently directed to the non-metadata sources so that the searchresults include matches from both the metadata and the non-metadatasources, and these searches, through both metadata and non-metadatasources, may be in response to a single search query or a single searchrequest or command and these searches may be performed concurrently.

Another aspect of the inventions described herein relates to one or moreimporters which interact with new or modified files created by differentapplication programs. These one or more importers may be invoked (e.g.called) by the application programs or by an operating system component(e.g. a metadata processing software) which responds to a call from theapplication programs or from an operating system kernel. In oneparticular example, an importer is called by a metadata processingsoftware in response to a notification from an OS kernel that a new filehas been created or an existing file has been modified; in this case,the particular importer called by the metadata processing system willtypically depend upon the type of file (e.g. text file or image file orMP3 file, etc.), although one, single importer for all file types on asystem may be used regardless of the type of file. An importer willtypically specify a file path name for the extracted metadata andspecify selected data to be extracted and written into the file pathname of the file containing the extracted metadata.

Another aspect of the inventions described herein relates to performinga search through a system while receiving input from a user, where thesearch is through a plurality of data files created by differentsoftware applications on a data processing system. In an exemplarymethod of this aspect, the data processing system begins a searchthrough the plurality of data files as the user enters input and beforethe user completes the entry of the search query. Thus, a user may entera search (“quick brown fox”) and before the user has entered “fox,” thedata processing system has searched through, or begins to searchthrough, the plurality of data files created by different softwareapplications and has displayed the list of matches to the partial searchquery “quick brown” (or at least begins to display a partial list ofmatches to the partial search query “quick brown”). This search may beperformed through the plurality of data files as well as the metadatafor the plurality of data files, wherein the type of information inmetadata for files of a first software application differs from the typeof information in metadata for files of a second software application.The search results may be sorted by relevancy, and the system maydisplay first only a partial list of matches and then, in response to auser request, display all the matches. The search results may beorganized by categories (e.g. see FIGS. 8A and 8B). Selecting one of theitems in the search result may cause the display of additionalinformation, beyond what is already displayed in the original searchresults listing.

Another aspect of the inventions relates to a method of selecting agroup of items, such as a group of individual data files. In anexemplary method of this aspect, a data processing system receives aselection of a plurality of items such as data files, folders (e.g.graphical user interface representations of subdirectories), applicationprograms or a combination of one or more of these items. This selectionmay be performed by one of the many conventional ways to select aplurality of items such as (a) pointing a cursor at each itemindividually (e.g. through movement of a mouse) and indicating aselection individually by, for example, pressing and releasing a buttonsuch as a mouse's button; (b) pointing a cursor at a first item in alist and indicating a selection of the first item and pointing thecursor at a last item in a list of items and indicating a selection ofall items from the first item to the last item in the list; (c) drawinga selection rectangle by a dragging operation of the cursor, etc. Afterthe selection of the plurality of items has been received, the dataprocessing system receives a command to create a new folder and add ormove, e.g. in one operation, the selected plurality of items into thenew folder. The add operation creates the new folder (optionally with aname specified by the user as a result of a prompt or request by thesystem) and copies the selected files into the new folder, whichrepresents a new subdirectory. This add operation is in response to thesingle command which requests that a new folder be created and thatcopies of the selected items be created and stored with a path namereflecting storage within the new folder. The move operation alsocreates a new folder (optionally with a name specified by the user as aresult of a prompt or request by the system) and may merely change thepath names associated with each of the selected items, which changedpath names reflect the new file system location (within the subdirectoryof the new folder) of the selected items.

Other aspects of the present invention include various data processingsystems which perform these methods and machine readable media whichperform various methods described herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is illustrated by way of example and notlimitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which likereferences indicate similar elements.

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary embodiment of a data processing system, whichmay be a general purpose computer system and which may operate in any ofthe various methods described herein.

FIG. 2 shows a general example of one exemplary method of one aspect ofthe invention.

FIG. 3A shows an example of the content of the particular type ofmetadata for a particular type of file.

FIG. 3B shows another example of a particular type of metadata foranother particular type of file.

FIG. 4 shows an example of an architecture for managing metadataaccording to one exemplary embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing another exemplary method of the presentinvention.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a storage format which utilizes a flat fileformat for metadata according to one exemplary embodiment of theinvention.

FIGS. 7A-7E show a sequence of graphical user interfaces provided by oneexemplary embodiment in order to allow searching of metadata and/orother data in a data processing system.

FIGS. 8A and 8B show two examples of formats for displaying searchresults according to one exemplary embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 9 shows another exemplary user interface of the present invention.

FIG. 10 shows another exemplary user interface of the present invention.

FIGS. 11A-11D show, in sequence, another exemplary user interfaceaccording to the present invention.

FIGS. 12A-12D show alternative embodiments of user interfaces accordingto the present invention.

FIGS. 13A and 13B show further alternative embodiments of userinterfaces according to the present invention.

FIGS. 14A, 14B, 14C, and 14D show further alternative embodiments ofuser interfaces according to the present invention.

FIGS. 15A, 15B, 15C and 15D show another alternative embodiment of userinterfaces according to the present invention.

FIGS. 16A and 16B show certain aspects of embodiments of user interfacesaccording to the present invention.

FIG. 17 shows an aspect of certain embodiments of user interfacesaccording to the present invention.

FIGS. 18A and 18B show further aspects of certain embodiments of userinterfaces according to the present invention.

FIGS. 19A, 19B, 19C, 19D, and 19E show further illustrative embodimentsof user interfaces according to the present invention.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart which illustrates another exemplary method ofthe present invention.

FIG. 21 is a flow chart showing another exemplary method of the presentinvention.

FIGS. 22A, 22B, 22C, and 22D illustrate the display of a display deviceon which an embodiment of the method of FIG. 21 is performed.

FIG. 23 is a flowchart showing an exemplary method for creating a savedsearch folder.

FIG. 24 shows an exemplary user interface for creating a saved searchfolder.

FIG. 25 shows a further user interface for creating a saved searchfolder.

FIG. 26 and FIG. 27 and FIG. 28 show user interfaces for using a savedsearch folder.

FIG. 29 is a flowchart which shows an exemplary embodiment for liveupdating of search results within a search window as new documents arecreated or received in the system which is being searched.

FIG. 30 is a flowchart which shows one exemplary embodiment for creatinga hierarchy of saved search folders or subdirectories.

FIG. 31 shows an exemplary user interface, such as a window, for a firstsaved search folder which encloses, in a hierarchical manner, a secondsaved search folder.

FIG. 32 shows another exemplary user interface wherein the second savedsearch folder, which may be considered a subfolder of the first savedsearch folder, has been opened in a separate window which overlaps thewindow showing the contents of the first saved folder.

FIG. 33 shows an example of a hierarchy of saved search folders, such assmart folders.

FIG. 34 shows a flowchart which illustrates an exemplary method in whichmodifications to one saved search folder result in modifications toother saved search folders when the folders have a hierarchy.

FIGS. 35, 36, and 37 illustrate exemplary user interfaces for managingsaved search folders, such as “smart” folders.

FIG. 38 shows an exemplary user interface for displaying search results,wherein the number of items from the search result is limited within anon-scrollable view.

FIGS. 39, 40, 41, 42, and 43 show various exemplary user interfaces fordisplaying search results according to certain embodiments of thepresent invention.

FIG. 44 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method for displaying alimited number of items within a search result window or interface.

FIG. 45 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method for indexing alluser related files prior to the user receiving the volume which containsthe user related files and which may also contain an operating systemsoftware on the same volume.

FIGS. 47 and 46 show exemplary user interfaces for indicating the statusof an indexing operation, which may be necessary if the volume beingsearched or to be searched has not been previously indexed, as is thecase with a pre-indexed volume.

FIG. 48 shows a flowchart illustrating an exemplary embodiment forpassing a search query, which has been processed by a system wide searchinterface and software, to a particular application having the filefound in the search, if further searching may be performed within theapplication after the search query has passed to the application.

FIG. 49 shows an exemplary user interface having a contextual pull downmenu which includes a search option based upon the present context ofthe window or interface which provides the pull down menu.

FIG. 50 is a flowchart showing an exemplary embodiment of a methodallowing, in at least certain embodiments, system wide searching usingtext selected from a text processing application, such as a wordprocessing application or an email application.

FIGS. 51, 52, and 53 illustrate an exemplary user interface whichimplements a method such as that shown in FIG. 50.

FIGS. 54 and 55 show exemplary user interfaces for a file open windowwhich includes a system wide, at least in certain embodiments, searchfeature.

FIG. 56 is a flowchart which illustrates an exemplary method forproviding a search input option within a file open window.

FIGS. 57 and 58 illustrate an exemplary user interface for allowing theuser to control or select preferences for searching functions within asystem.

FIGS. 59 and 60 show an exemplary user interface for providing searchresults within a file browser or file management system.

FIG. 61 is a flowchart which illustrates an exemplary method forselecting search options, where one of those options allows for theselection of metadata search attributes from an expandable list of suchattributes.

FIGS. 62, 63 and 64 illustrate an exemplary user interface forimplementing a method such as that shown in FIG. 61.

FIGS. 65 and 66 show an exemplary user interface for displayinginformation about a particular file.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The subject invention will be described with reference to numerousdetails set forth below, and the accompanying drawings will illustratethe invention. The following description and drawings are illustrativeof the invention and are not to be construed as limiting the invention.Numerous specific details are described to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the present invention. However, in certain instances,well known or conventional details are not described in order to notunnecessarily obscure the present invention in detail.

The present description includes material protected by copyrights, suchas illustrations of graphical user interface images. The owners of thecopyrights, including the assignee of the present invention, herebyreserve their rights, including copyright, in these materials. Thecopyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyoneof the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in thePatent and Trademark Office file or records, but otherwise reserves allcopyrights whatsoever. Copyright Apple Computer, Inc. 2005.

FIG. 1 shows one example of a typical computer system which may be usedwith the present invention. Note that while FIG. 1 illustrates variouscomponents of a computer system, it is not intended to represent anyparticular architecture or manner of interconnecting the components assuch details are not germane to the present invention. It will also beappreciated that network computers and other data processing systemswhich have fewer components or perhaps more components may also be usedwith the present invention. The computer system of FIG. 1 may, forexample, be a Macintosh computer from Apple Computer, Inc.

As shown in FIG. 1, the computer system 101, which is a form of a dataprocessing system, includes a bus 102 which is coupled to amicroprocessor(s) 103 and a ROM (Read Only Memory) 107 and volatile RAM105 and a non-volatile memory 106. The microprocessor 103 may be a G3 orG4 microprocessor from Motorola, Inc. or one or more G5 microprocessorsfrom IBM. The bus 102 interconnects these various components togetherand also interconnects these components 103, 107, 105, and 106 to adisplay controller and display device 104 and to peripheral devices suchas input/output (I/O) devices which may be mice, keyboards, modems,network interfaces, printers and other devices which are well known inthe art. Typically, the input/output devices 109 are coupled to thesystem through input/output controllers 108. The volatile RAM (RandomAccess Memory) 105 is typically implemented as dynamic RAM (DRAM) whichrequires power continually in order to refresh or maintain the data inthe memory. The mass storage 106 is typically a magnetic hard drive or amagnetic optical drive or an optical drive or a DVD RAM or other typesof memory systems which maintain data (e.g. large amounts of data) evenafter power is removed from the system. Typically, the mass storage 106will also be a random access memory although this is not required. WhileFIG. 1 shows that the mass storage 106 is a local device coupleddirectly to the rest of the components in the data processing system, itwill be appreciated that the present invention may utilize anon-volatile memory which is remote from the system, such as a networkstorage device which is coupled to the data processing system through anetwork interface such as a modem or Ethernet interface. The bus 102 mayinclude one or more buses connected to each other through variousbridges, controllers and/or adapters as is well known in the art. In oneembodiment the I/O controller 108 includes a USB (Universal Serial Bus)adapter for controlling USB peripherals and an IEEE 1394 controller forIEEE 1394 compliant peripherals.

It will be apparent from this description that aspects of the presentinvention may be embodied, at least in part, in software. That is, thetechniques may be carried out in a computer system or other dataprocessing system in response to its processor, such as amicroprocessor, executing sequences of instructions contained in amemory, such as ROM 107, RAM 105, mass storage 106 or a remote storagedevice. In various embodiments, hardwired circuitry may be used incombination with software instructions to implement the presentinvention. Thus, the techniques are not limited to any specificcombination of hardware circuitry and software nor to any particularsource for the instructions executed by the data processing system. Inaddition, throughout this description, various functions and operationsare described as being performed by or caused by software code tosimplify description. However, those skilled in the art will recognizewhat is meant by such expressions is that the functions result fromexecution of the code by a processor, such as the microprocessor 103.

Capturing and Use of Metadata Across a Variety of Application Programs

FIG. 2 shows a generalized example of one embodiment of the presentinvention. In this example, captured metadata is made available to asearching facility, such as a component of the operating system whichallows concurrent searching of all metadata for all applications havingcaptured metadata (and optionally for all non-metadata of the datafiles). The method of FIG. 2 may begin in operation 201 in whichmetadata is captured from a variety of different application programs.This captured metadata is then made available in operation 203 to asearching facility, such as a file management system software forsearching. This searching facility allows, in operation 205, thesearching of metadata across all applications having captured metadata.The method also provides, in operation 207, a user interface of a searchengine and the search results which are obtained by the search engine.There are numerous possible implementations of the method of FIG. 2. Forexample, FIG. 5 shows a specific implementation of one exemplaryembodiment of the method of FIG. 2. Alternative implementations may alsobe used. For example, in an alternative implementation, the metadata maybe provided by each application program to a central source which storesthe metadata for use by searching facilities and which is managed by anoperating system component, which may be, for example, the metadataprocessing software. The user interface provided in operation 207 maytake a variety of different formats, including some of the examplesdescribed below as well as user interfaces which are conventional, priorart user interfaces. The metadata may be stored in a database which maybe any of a variety of formats including a B tree format or, asdescribed below, in a flat file format according to one embodiment ofthe invention.

The method of FIG. 2 may be implemented for programs which do not storeor provide metadata. In this circumstance, a portion of the operatingsystem provides for the capture of the metadata from the variety ofdifferent programs even though the programs have not been designed toprovide or capture metadata. For those programs which do allow a user tocreate metadata for a particular document, certain embodiments of thepresent invention may allow the exporting back of captured metadata backinto data files for applications which maintain metadata about theirdata files.

The method of FIG. 2 allows information about a variety of differentfiles created by a variety of different application programs to beaccessible by a system wide searching facility, which is similar to theway in which prior art versions of the Finder or Windows Explorer cansearch for file names, dates of creation, etc. across a variety ofdifferent application programs. Thus, the metadata for a variety ofdifferent files created by a variety of different application programscan be accessed through an extension of an operating system, and anexample of such an extension is shown in FIG. 4 as a metadata processingsoftware which interacts with other components of the system and will bedescribed further below.

FIGS. 3A and 3B show two different metadata formats for two differenttypes of data files. Note that there may be no overlap in any of thefields; in other words, no field in one type of metadata is the same asany field in the other type of metadata. Metadata format 301 may be usedfor an image file such as a JPEG image file. This metadata may includeinformation such as the image's width, the image's height, the image'scolor space, the number of bits per pixel, the ISO setting, the flashsetting, the F/stop of the camera, the brand name of the camera whichtook the image, user-added keywords and other fields, such as a fieldwhich uniquely identifies the particular file, which identification ispersistent through modifications of the file. Metadata format 331 shownin FIG. 3B may be used for a music file such as an MP3 music file. Thedata in this metadata format may include an identification of theartist, the genre of the music, the name of the album, song names in thealbum or the song name of the particular file, song play times or thesong play time of a particular song and other fields, such as apersistent file ID number which identifies the particular MP3 file fromwhich the metadata was captured. Other types of fields may also be used.The following chart shows examples of the various fields which may beused in metadata for various types of files.

Parent in Copied Item hier- Multi- User Get- with App name archyAttribute name Description/Notes CFType value Localized settable tablecopy viewable Item n/a Authors Who created or contributed CFString YesNo Yes Yes Yes Address to the contents of this item Book Comment A freeform text comment CFString No No Yes Yes Yes ContentType This is thetype that is CFString No ? No Yes Yes determined by UTI ContentTypesThis is the inheritance of the CFString Yes ? No Yes Yes UTI systemCreatedDate When was this item created CFDate No No No Yes YesDisplayName The name of the item as the CFString No Yes Yes Yes YesFinder (or user would like to read it. Launch Very well may be the fileServices) name, but it may also be the subject of an e-mail message orthe full name of a person, for example. Keywords This is a list wordsset by the CFString Yes System- Yes Yes Ask user to identify arbitrarysets provided of organization. The scope is keywords determined by theuser and (if any) can be flexibly used for any kind of organization. Forexample, Family, Hawaii, Project X, etc. Contact Keywords A list ofcontacts that are CFString Yes No Yes Yes Ask Address associated withthis Book document, beyond what is captured as Author. This may be aperson who's in the picture or a document about a person or contact(performance review, contract) ModifiedDate When this item was lastCFDate No No No Yes modified Rating A relative rating (0 to 5 CFNumberNo n/a Yes Yes value) on how important a particular item is to you,whether it's a person, file or message RelatedTos A list of other itemsthat are CFString Yes No Yes Yes arbitrarily grouped together.TextContent An indexed version of any CFString No No No Yes content textUsedDates Which days was the CFDate Yes No No Yes documentopened/viewed/played Con- Item Copyright Specifies the owner of thisCFString No No Yes Yes tent/ content, i.e. Copyright Apple DataComputer, Inc. CreatorApp Keeps track of the application CFString No ?No Yes that was used to create this document (if it's known). LanguagesThe languages that this CFString Yes Yes Yes Yes document is composed in(for either text or audio-based media) ParentalControl A field that isused to CFString No ? Yes Yes determine whether this is kid- friendlycontent or not Publishers The name or a person or CFString Yes No YesYes Address organization that published Book this content. PublishedDateThe original date that this CFDate No No Yes Yes content was published(if it was), independent of created date. Reviewers A list of contactswho have CFString Yes No Yes Yes Address reviewed the contents of thisBook file. This would have to be set explicitly by an application.ReviewStatus Free form text that used to CFString No ? Yes Yes specifywhere the document is in any arbitrary review process TimeEdited Totaltime spent editing CFDate No No No Yes document WhereTos Where did thisgo to, eg. CD, CFString Yes System- ? Yes printed, backedup providedwords only (if any) WhereFroms Where did this come from, CFString YesSystem- ? Yes e.g. camera, email, web provided download, CD words only(if any) Image Data BitsPerSample What is the bit depth of the CFNumberNo Yes image (8-bit, 16-bit, etc.) ColorSpace What color space model isCFString No Yes ColorSync this document following Utility? ImageHeightThe height of the image in CFNumber No Yes pixels ImageWidth The widthof the image in CFNumber No Yes pixels ProfileName The name of the colorprofile CFString No Yes ColorSync used with for image Utility?ResolutionWidth Resolution width of this CFNumber No Yes image (i.e. dpifrom a scanner) ResolutionHeight Resolution height of this CFNumber NoYes image (i.e. dpi from a scanner) LayerNames For image formats thatCFString Yes Yes contain “named” layers (e.g. Photoshop files) ApertureThe f-stop rating of the CFNumber No Yes camera when the image was takenCameraMake The make of the camera that CFString No Yes Yes was used toacquire this image (e.g. Nikon) CameraModel The model of the cameraCFString No Yes Yes used to acquire this image (Coolpix 5700)DateTimeOriginal Date/time the picture was CFDate No Yes takenExposureMode Mode that was used for the CFString No Yes exposureExposureTime Time that the lens was CFDate No Yes exposed while takingthe picture Flash This attribute is overloaded CFNumber No Yes withinformation about red- eye reduction. This is not a binary value GPS Rawvalue received from CFString No Yes GPS device associated with photoacquisition. It hasn't necessarily been translated to auser-understandable location. ISOSpeed The ISO speed the camera CFNumberNo Yes was set to when the image was acquired Orientation Theorientation of the camera CFString No Yes when the image was acquiredWhiteBalance The white balance setting of CFNumber No Yes the camerawhen the picture was taken EXIFversion The version of EXIF that wasCFString No Yes used to generate the metadata for the imageAcquisitionSources The name or type of device CFString Yes Yes that usedto acquire the media Time- Data Codecs The codecs used to CFString YesYes based encode/decode the media DeliveryType FastStart or RTSPCFString No Yes Duration The length of time that the CFNumber No Yesmedia lasts Streamable Whether the content is CFBoolean No Yes preparedfor purposes of streaming TotalBitRate The total bit rate (audio &CFNumber No Yes video combined) of the media. AudioBitRate The audio bitrate of the CFNumber No Yes media AspectRatio The aspect ratio of thevideo CFString No Yes of the media ColorSpace The color space model usedCFString No Yes for the video aspect of the media FrameHeight The frameheight in pixels of CFNumber No Yes the video in the media FrameWidthThe frame width in pixels of CFNumber No Yes the video in the mediaProfileName The name of the color profile CFString No Yes used on thevideo portion of the media VideoBitRate The bit rate of the videoCFNumber No Yes aspect of the media Text Data Subject The subject of thetext. This CFString No Yes could be metadata that's supplied with thetext or something automatically generated with technologies like VTWINPageCount The number of printable CFNumber No Yes pages of the documentLineCount The number of lines in the CFNumber No Yes document WordCountThe number of words in the CFNumber No Yes document URL The URL thatwill get you to CFString No Yes this document (or at least did at onetime). Relevant for saved HTML documents, bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc.PageTitle The title of a web page. CFString No Yes Relevant to HTML orbookmark documents Google Hierarchy Structure of where this pageCFString No Yes can be found in the Google hierarchy. Relevant to HTMLor bookmark documents Com- Data <Abstract> There are no specific n/a n/an/a n/a n/a n/a n/a pound attributes assigned to this docu- item. Thisis to catch all app- ment specific file formats that fall within Data,but don't fit into any of the other types. Typically these documentshave multiple types of media embedded within them. (e.g. P PDF Com-NumberOfPages The number of printable CFNumber No Yes pound pages in thedocument docu- PageSize The size of the page stored as CFNumber No NoYes ment points PDFTitle PDF-specific title metadata CFString No ? Yesfor the document PDFAuthor PDF-specific author metadata CFString No ?Yes Address for the document Book PDFSubject PDF-specific subjectCFString No ? Yes metadata for the document PDFKeywords PDF-specifickeywords CFString Yes ? Yes metadata for the document PDFCreatedPDF-specific created CFDate No ? Yes metadata for the documentPDFModified PDF-specific modified CFDate No ? Yes metadata for thedocument PDFVersion PDF-specific version CFString No ? Yes metadata forthe document SecurityMethod Method by which this CFString No Yesdocument is kept secure Presen- Com- SlideTitles A collection of thetitles on CFString Yes Yes tation pound slides (Key- docu- SlideCountThe number of slides CFString No Yes note) ment SpeakerNotesContent Thecontent of all the speaker CFString ? Yes notes from all of the slidestogether Appli- Item Categories The kind of application this CFStringYes Yes cation is: productivity, games, utility, graphics, etc. A setlist that Mes- Item Recipients Maps to To and Cc: CFString Yes YesAddress sage addresses in a mail message. Book Priority The priority ofthe message CFString No Yes as set by the sender AttachmentNames Thelist of filenames that CFString Yes Yes represent attachments in aparticular message (should be actionable within the Finder) Authors mapsto From address in mail CFString Yes No Yes Yes Yes Address message BookComment Not applicable to Mail right CFString No No Yes Yes Yes now(should we consider?) ContentType CFString No No Yes Yes ContentTypesCFString Yes No Yes Yes CreatedDate When was this message was CFDate NoNo No Yes Yes sent or received DisplayName Subject of the messageCFString No Yes Yes Yes Yes Keywords There will be a way to set CFStringYes System- Yes Yes Ask keywords within Mail provided keywords (if any)Contact Keywords Could be where recipients are CFString Yes No Yes YesAsk Address held Book ModifiedDate Not applicable CFDate No No No YesRating A relative rating (0 to 5 stars) CFNumber No n/a Yes Yes on howimportant a particular message is to you (separate from a message'sPriority) RelatedTos Potentially threaded messages CFString Yes No YesYes could be put into this category TextContent An indexed version ofthe CFString No No No Yes mail message UsedDates The day/time in whichthe CFDate Yes No No Yes mail message was viewed/read Contact ItemCompany The company that this contact CFString No Yes Address is anemployee of Book E-mails A list of e-mail addresses that CFString YesYes Mail this contact has IMs A list of instant message CFString Yes YesiChat handles this contact has Phones A list of phone numbers thatCFString Yes relate to this contact Addresses A list of physicaladdresses CFString Yes that relate to this person Authors the name ofthe owner of the CFString Yes No Yes Yes Yes Address Address Book(current user Book name) Comment CFString No No Yes Yes Yes ContentTypeCFString No No Yes Yes ContentTypes CFString Yes No Yes Yes CreatedDatedate the user entered this into CFDate No No No Yes Yes his AddressBook(either through import or direct entry) DisplayName Composite name ofcontact CFString No Yes Yes Yes Yes (First Name, Last Name) KeywordsThere will be a way to set CFString Yes System- Yes Yes Ask keywordswithin Address provided Book keywords (if any) Contact Keywords CFStringYes No Yes Yes Ask Address ModifiedDate Last time this contact entryCFDate No No No Yes Book was modified Rating A relative rating (0 to 5stars) CFNumber No n/a Yes Yes on how important a particular contact isto you (separate from a message's Priority) RelatedTos (potentiallycould be used to CFString Yes No Yes Yes associate people from the samecompany or family) TextContent An indexed version of the CFString No NoNo Yes Notes section UsedDates The day/time in which the CFDate Yes NoNo Yes contact entry was viewed in Address Book Meeting Item Body text,rich text or document CFString No Yes (TBD) that represents the fullcontent of the event Description text describing the event CFString NoYes EventTimes time/date the event starts CFDate Yes Yes Duration Thelength of time that the CFNumber No Yes meeting lasts Invitees The listof people who are CFString Yes Yes Address invited to the meeting BookLocation The name of the location CFString No Yes where the meeting istaking place

One particular field which may be useful in the various metadata formatswould be a field which includes an identifier of a plug in or othersoftware element which may be used to capture metadata from a data fileand/or export metadata back to the creator application.

Various different software architectures may be used to implement thefunctions and operations described herein. The following discussionprovides one example of such an architecture, but it will be understoodthat alternative architectures may also be employed to achieve the sameor similar results. The software architecture shown in FIG. 4 is anexample which is based upon the Macintosh operating system. Thearchitecture 400 includes a metadata processing software 401 and anoperating system (OS) kernel 403 which is operatively coupled to themetadata processing software 401 for a notification mechanism which isdescribed below. The metadata processing software 401 is also coupled toother software programs such as a file system graphical user interfacesoftware 405 (which may be the Finder), an email software 407, and otherapplications 409. These applications are coupled to the metadataprocessing software 401 through client application program interface 411which provide a method for transferring data and commands between themetadata processing software 401 and the software 405, 407, and 409.These commands and data may include search parameters specified by auser as well as commands to perform searches from the user, whichparameters and commands are passed to the metadata processing software401 through the interface 411. The metadata processing software 401 isalso coupled to a collection of importers 413 which extract data fromvarious applications. In particular, in one exemplary embodiment, a textimporter is used to extract text and other information from wordprocessing or text processing files created by word processing programssuch as Microsoft Word, etc. This extracted information is the metadatafor a particular file. Other types of importers extract metadata fromother types of files, such as image files or music files. In thisparticular embodiment, a particular importer is selected based upon thetype of file which has been created and modified by an applicationprogram. For example, if the data file was created by PhotoShop, then animage importer for PhotoShop may be used to input the metadata from aPhotoShop data file into the metadata database 415 through the metadataprocessing software 401. On the other hand, if the data file is a wordprocessing document, then an importer designed to extract metadata froma word processing document is called upon to extract the metadata fromthe word processing data file and place it into the metadata database415 through the metadata processing software 401. Typically, a pluralityof different importers may be required in order to handle the pluralityof different application programs which are used in a typical computersystem. The importers 413 may optionally include a plurality ofexporters which are capable of exporting the extracted metadata forparticular types of data files back to property sheets or other datacomponents maintained by certain application programs. For example,certain application programs may maintain some metadata for each datafile created by the program, but this metadata is only a subset of themetadata extracted by an importer from this type of data file. In thisinstance, the exporter may export back additional metadata or may simplyinsert metadata into blank fields of metadata maintained by theapplication program.

The software architecture 400 also includes a file system directory 417for the metadata. This file system directory keeps track of therelationship between the data files and their metadata and keeps trackof the location of the metadata object (e.g. a metadata file whichcorresponds to the data file from which it was extracted) created byeach importer. In one exemplary embodiment, the metadata database ismaintained as a flat file format as described below, and the file systemdirectory 417 maintains this flat file format. One advantage of a flatfile format is that the data is laid out on a storage device as a stringof data without references between fields from one metadata file(corresponding to a particular data file) to another metadata file(corresponding to another data file). This arrangement of data willoften result in faster retrieval of information from the metadatadatabase 415.

The software architecture 400 of FIG. 4 also includes find by contentsoftware 419 which is operatively coupled to a database 421 whichincludes an index of files. The index of files represents at least asubset of the data files in a storage device and may include all of thedata files in a particular storage device (or several storage devices),such as the main hard drive of a computer system. The index of files maybe a conventional indexed representation of the content of eachdocument. The find by content software 419 searches for words in thatcontent by searching through the database 421 to see if a particularword exists in any of the data files which have been indexed. The findby content software functionality is available through the metadataprocessing software 401 which provides the advantage to the user thatthe user can search concurrently both the index of files in the database421 (for the content within a file) as well as the metadata for thevarious data files being searched. The software architecture shown inFIG. 4 may be used to perform the method shown in FIG. 5 or alternativearchitectures may be used to perform the method of FIG. 5.

The method of FIG. 5 may begin in operation 501 in which a notificationof a change for a file is received. This notification may come from theOS kernel 403 which notifies the metadata processing software 401 that afile has been changed. This notification may come from sniffer softwareelements which detect new or modified files and deletion of files. Thischange may be the creation of a new file or the modification of anexisting file or the deletion of an existing file. The deletion of anexisting file causes a special case of the processing method of FIG. 5and is not shown in FIG. 5. In the case of a deletion, the metadataprocessing software 401, through the use of the file system directory417, deletes the metadata file in the metadata database 415 whichcorresponds to the deleted file. The other types of operations, such asthe creation of a new file or the modification of an existing file,causes the processing to proceed from operation 501 to operation 503 inwhich the type of file which is the subject of the notification isdetermined. The file may be an Acrobat PDF file or an RTF wordprocessing file or a JPEG image file, etc. In any case, the type of thefile is determined in operation 503. This may be performed by receivingfrom the OS kernel 403 the type of file along with the notification orthe metadata processing software 401 may request an identification ofthe type of file from the file system graphical user interface software405 or similar software which maintains information about the data file,such as the creator application or parent application of the data file.It will be understood that in one exemplary embodiment, the file systemgraphical user interface software 405 is the Finder program whichoperates on the Macintosh operating system. In alternative embodiments,the file system graphical user interface system may be Windows Explorerwhich operates on Microsoft's Windows operating system. After the typeof file has been determined in operation 503, the appropriate capturesoftware (e.g. one of the importers 413) is activated for the determinedfile type. The importers may be a plug-in for the particular applicationwhich created the type of file about which notification is received inoperation 501. Once activated, the importer or capture software importsthe appropriate metadata (for the particular file type) into themetadata database, such as metadata database 415 as shown in operation507. Then in operation 509, the metadata is stored in the database. Inone exemplary embodiment, it may be stored in a flat file format. Thenin operation 511, the metadata processing software 401 receives searchparameter inputs and performs a search of the metadata database (andoptionally also causes a search of non-metadata sources such as theindex of files 421) and causes the results of the search to be displayedin a user interface. This may be performed by exchanging informationbetween one of the applications, such as the software 405 or thesoftware 407 or the other applications 409 and the metadata processingsoftware 401 through the interface 411. For example, the file systemsoftware 405 may present a graphical user interface, allowing a user toinput search parameters and allowing the user to cause a search to beperformed. This information is conveyed through the interface 411 to themetadata processing software 401 which causes a search trough themetadata database 415 and also may cause a search through the database421 of the indexed files in order to search for content within each datafile which has been indexed. The results from these searches areprovided by the metadata processing software 401 to the requestingapplication which, in the example given here, was the software 405, butit will be appreciated that other components of software, such as theemail software 407, may be used to receive the search inputs and toprovide a display of the search results. Various examples of the userinterface for inputting search requests and for displaying searchresults are described herein and shown in the accompanying drawings.

It will be appreciated that the notification, if done through the OSkernel, is a global, system wide notification process such that changesto any file will cause a notification to be sent to the metadataprocessing software. It will also be appreciated that in alternativeembodiments, each application program may itself generate the necessarymetadata and provide the metadata directly to a metadata databasewithout the requirement of a notification from an operating systemkernel or from the intervention of importers, such as the importers 413.Alternatively, rather than using OS kernel notifications, an embodimentmay use software calls from each application to a metadata processingsoftware which receives these calls and then imports the metadata fromeach file in response to the call.

As noted above, the metadata database 415 may be stored in a flat fileformat in order to improve the speed of retrieval of information in mostcircumstances. The flat file format may be considered to be a non-Btree, non-hash tree format in which data is not attempted to beorganized but is rather stored as a stream of data. Each metadata objector metadata file will itself contain fields, such as the fields shown inthe examples of FIGS. 3A and 3B. However, there will typically be norelationship or reference or pointer from one field in one metadata fileto the corresponding field (or another field) in the next metadata fileor in another metadata file of the same file type. FIG. 6 shows anexample of the layout in a flat file format of metadata. The format maybe streamable and updateable by virtue of its flat file format. Theformat 601 includes a plurality of metadata files for a correspondingplurality of data files. As shown in FIG. 6, metadata file 603 ismetadata from file 1 of application A and may be referred to as metadatafile A1. Similarly, metadata file 605 is metadata from file 1 ofapplication B and may be referred to as metadata file B1. Each of thesemetadata files typically would include fields which are not linked toother fields and which do not contain references or pointers to otherfields in other metadata files. It can be seen from FIG. 6 that themetadata database of FIG. 6 includes metadata files from a plurality ofdifferent applications (applications A, B, and C) and different filescreated by each of those applications. Metadata files 607, 609, 611, and617 are additional metadata files created by applications A, B, and C asshown in FIG. 6.

A flexible query language may be used to search the metadata database inthe same way that such query languages are used to search otherdatabases. The data within each metadata file may be packed or evencompressed if desirable. As noted above, each metadata file, in certainembodiments, will include a persistent identifier which uniquelyidentifies its corresponding data file. This identifier remains the sameeven if the name of the file is changed or the file is modified. Thisallows for the persistent association between the particular data fileand its metadata.

User Interface Aspects

Various different examples of user interfaces for inputting searchparameters and for displaying search results are provided herein. Itwill be understood that some features from certain embodiments may bemixed with other embodiments such that hybrid embodiments may resultfrom these combinations. It will be appreciated that certain featuresmay be removed from each of these embodiments and still provide adequatefunctionality in many instances.

FIG. 7A shows a graphical user interface which is a window which may bedisplayed on a display device which is coupled to a data processingsystem such as a computer system. The window 701 includes a side barhaving two regions 703A, which is a user-configurable region, and 703B,which is a region which is specified by the data processing system.Further details in connection with these side bar regions may be foundin co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/873,661 filed Jun. 21,2004, and entitled “Methods and Apparatuses for Operating a DataProcessing System,” by inventors Donald Lindsay and Bas Ording, attorneydocket number 04860.P3306. The window 701 also includes a display region705 which in this case displays the results of searches requested by theuser. The window 701 also includes a search parameter menu bar 707 whichincludes configurable pull down menus 713, 715, and 7117. The window 701also includes a text entry region 709 which allows a user to enter textas part of the search query or search parameters. The button 711 may bea start search button which a user activates in order to start a searchbased upon the selected search parameters. Alternatively, the system mayperform a search as soon as it receives any search parameter inputs orsearch queries from the user rather than waiting for a command to beginthe search. The window 701 also includes a title bar 729 which may beused in conjunction with a cursor control device to move, in aconventional manner, the window around a desktop which is displayed on adisplay device. The window 701 also includes a close button 734, aminimize button 735, and a resize button 736 which may be used to closeor minimize or resize, respectively, the window. The window 701 alsoincludes a resizing control 731 which allows a user to modify the sizeof the window on a display device. The window 701 further includes aback button 732 and a forward button 733 which function in a mannerwhich is similar to the back and forward buttons on a web browser, suchas Internet Explorer or Safari. The window 701 also includes viewcontrols which include three buttons for selecting three different typesof views of the content within the display region 705. When the contentsfound in a search exceed the available display area of a display region705, scroll controls, such as scroll controls 721, 722, and 723, appearwithin the window 701. These may be used in a conventional manner, forexample, by dragging the scroll bar 721 within the scroll region 721Ausing conventional graphical user interface techniques.

The combination of text entry region 709 and the search parameter menubar allow a user to specify a search query or search parameters. Each ofthe configurable pull down menus presents a user with a list of optionsto select from when the user activates the pull down menu. As shown inFIG. 7A, the user has already made a selection from the configurablepull down menu 713 to specify the location of the search, which in thiscase specifies that the search will occur on the local disks of thecomputer systems. Configurable pull down menu 715 has also been used bythe user to specify the kind of document which is to be searched for,which in this case is an image document as indicated by the configurablepull down menu 715 which indicates “images” as the selectedconfiguration of this menu and hence the search parameter which itspecifies. The configurable pull down menu 717, as shown in FIG. 7A,represents an add search parameter pull down menu. This add searchparameter pull down menu allows the user to add additional criteria tothe search query to further limit the search results. In the embodimentshown in FIG. 7A, each of the search parameters is logically ANDed in aBoolean manner. Thus the current search parameter specified by the userin the state shown in FIG. 7A searches all local disks for all images,and the user is in the middle of the process of selecting another searchcriteria by having selected the add search criteria pull down menu 717,resulting in the display of the pull down menu 719, which has aplurality of options which may be selected by the user.

FIG. 7B shows the window 701 after the user has caused the selection ofthe time option within pull down menu 719, thereby causing the displayof a submenu 719A which includes a list of possible times which the usermay select from. Thus it appears that the user wants to limit the searchto all images on all local disks within a certain period of time whichis to be specified by making a selection within the submenu 719A.

FIG. 7C shows the window 701 on the display of a data processing systemafter the user has selected a particular option (in this case “pastweek”) from the submenu 719A. If the user accepts this selection, thenthe display shown in FIG. 7D results in which the configurable pull downmenu 718 is displayed showing that the user has selected as part of thesearch criteria files that have been created or modified in the pastweek. It can be seen from FIG. 7D that the user can change theparticular time selected from this pull down menu 718 by selectinganother time period within the pull down menu 718A shown in FIG. 7D.Note that the configurable pull down menu 717, which represents an addsearch parameter menu, has now moved to the right of the configurablepull down menu 718. The user may add further search parameters bypressing or otherwise activating the configurable pull down menu 717from the search parameter menu bar 707. If the user decides that thepast week is the proper search criteria in the time category, then theuser may release the pull down menu 718A from being displayed in avariety of different ways (e.g. the user may release the mouse buttonwhich was being depressed to keep the pull down menu 718A on thedisplay). Upon releasing or otherwise dismissing the pull down menu718A, the resulting window 701 shown in FIG. 7E then appears. There areseveral aspects of this user interface shown in FIG. 7A-7E which areworthy of being noted. The search parameters or search query isspecified within the same window as the display of the search results.This allows the user to look at a single location or window tounderstand the search parameters and how they affected the displayedsearch results, and may make it easier for a user to alter or improvethe search parameters in order to find one or more files. Theconfigurable pull down menus, such as the add search parameter pull downmenu, includes hierarchical pull down menus. An example of this is shownin FIG. 7B in which the selection of the time criteria from the pulldown menu 717 results in the display of another menu, in this case asubmenu 719A which may be selected from by the user. This allows for acompact presentation of the various search parameters while keeping theinitial complexity (e.g. without submenus being displayed) at a lowerlevel. Another useful aspect of the user interface shown in FIG. 7A-7Eis the ability to reconfigure pull down menus which have previously beenconfigured. Thus, for example, the configurable pull down menu 713currently specifies the location of the search (in this case, all localdisks), however, this may be modified by selecting the pull down regionassociated with the configurable pull down menu 713, causing the displayof a menu of options indicating alternative locations which may beselected by the user. This can also be seen in FIG. 7D in which the pastweek option has been selected by the user (as indicated by “past week”being in the search parameter menu bar 707), but a menu of options shownin the pull down menu 718A allows the user to change the selected timefrom the “past week” to some other time criteria. Another useful aspectof this user interface is the ability to continue adding various searchcriteria by using the add search criteria pull down menu 717 andselecting a new criteria.

It will also be appreciated that the various options in the pull downmenus may depend upon the fields within a particular type of metadatafile. For example, the selection of “images” to be searched may causethe various fields present in the metadata for an image type file toappear in one or more pull down menus, allowing the user to searchwithin one or more of those fields for that particular type of file.Other fields which do not apply to “images” types of files may notappear in these menus in order reduce the complexity of the menus and toprevent user confusion.

Another feature of the present invention is shown in FIGS. 7A-7E. Inparticular, the side bar region 703A, which is the user-configurableportion of the side bar, includes a representation of a folder 725 whichrepresents the search results obtained from a particular search, whichsearch results may be static or they may be dynamic in that, in certaininstances, the search can be performed again to obtain results based onthe current files in the system. The folder 725 in the example shown inFIGS. 7A-7E represents a search on a local disk for all images done onDecember 10^(th). By selecting this folder in the side bar region 703A,the user may cause the display in the display region 705 of the resultsof that search. In this way, a user may retrieve a search resultautomatically by saving the search result into the side bar region 703A.One mechanism for causing a search result or a search query to be savedinto the side bar region 703A is to select the add folder button 727which appears in the bottom portion of the window 701. By selecting thisbutton, the current search result or search query is saved as a list offiles and other objects retrieved in the current search result. In thecase where the search query is saved for later use rather than thesaving of a search result, then the current search query is saved forre-use at a later time in order to find files which match the searchquery at that later time. The user may select between these twofunctionalities (saving a search result or saving a search query) by theselection of a command which is not shown.

FIGS. 8A and 8B show another aspect of a user interface feature whichmay be used with certain embodiments of the present invention. Thewindow 801 of FIG. 8A represents a display of the search results whichmay be obtained as a result of using one of the various differentembodiments of the present invention. The search results are separatedinto categories which are separated by headers 805, 807, 809, and 811which in this case represent periods of time. This particularsegmentation with headers was selected by the user's selecting theheading “date modified” using the date modified button 803 at the top ofthe window 801. An alternative selection of the kind category byselecting the button 802 at the top of the window 801A shown in FIG. 8Bresults in a different formatting of the search results which are nowcategorized by headers which indicate the types of files which wereretrieved in the search and are separated by the headings 815, 817, 819,and 821 as shown in FIG. 8B. The use of these headings in the searchresults display allows the user to quickly scan through the searchresults in order to find the file.

FIG. 9 shows another aspect of the present invention that is illustratedas part of the window 901 shown in FIG. 9. This window includes adisplay region 905 which shows the results of the search and the windowalso includes two side bar regions 903A and 903B, where the side barregion 903A is the user-configurable portion and the side bar region903B is the system controlled portion. A folder add button 927 may beselected by the user to cause the addition of a search result or asearch query to be added to the user-configurable portion of the sidebar. The window 901 also includes conventional window controls such as atitle bar or region 929 which may be used to move the window around adisplay and view select buttons 937 and maximize, minimize and resizebuttons 934, 935, and 936 respectively. The window 901 shows aparticular manner in which the results of a text-based search may bedisplayed. A text entry region 909 is used to enter text for searching.This text may be used to search through the metadata files or theindexed files or a combination of both. The display region 905 shows theresults of a search for text and includes at least two columns, 917 and919, which provide the name of the file that was found and the basis forthe match. As shown in column 919, the basis for the match may be theauthor field or a file name or a key word or comments or other datafields contained in metadata that was searched. The column 921 shows thetext that was found which matches the search parameter typed into thetext entry field 909. Another column 911 provides additional informationwith respect to the search results. In particular, this column includesthe number of matches for each particular type of category or field aswell as the total number of matches indicated in the entry 913. Thus,for example, the total number of matches found for the comments field isonly 1, while other fields have a higher number of matches.

FIG. 10 shows certain other aspects of some embodiments of the presentinvention. Window 1001 is another search result window which includesvarious fields and menus for a user to select various search parametersor form a search query. The window 1001 includes a display region 1005which may be used to display the results of a search and auser-configurable side bar portion 1003A and a system specified side barportion 1003B. In addition, the window 1001 includes conventionalscrolling controls such as controls 1021 and 1022 and 1021A. The windowfurther includes conventional controls such as a title bar 1029 whichmay be used to move the window and view control buttons 1037 andmaximize, minimize, and resize buttons 1034, 1035, and 1036. A startsearch button 1015 is near a text entry region 1009. A first searchparameter menu bar 1007 is displayed adjacent to a second searchparameter bar 1011. The first search parameter search bar 1007 allows auser to specify the location for a particular search while two menu pulldown controls in the second search parameter menu bar 1011 allow theuser to specify the type of file using the pull down menu 1012 and thetime the file was created or last modified using the menu 1013.

The window 1001 includes an additional feature which may be very usefulwhile analyzing a search result. A user may select individual files fromwithin the display region 1005 and associate them together as onecollection. Each file may be individually marked using a specificcommand (e.g. pressing the right button on a mouse and selecting acommand from a menu which appears on the screen, which command may be“add selection to current group”) or similar such commands. Byindividually selecting such files or by selecting a group of files atonce, the user may associate this group of files into a selected groupor a “marked” group and this association may be used to perform a commonaction on all of the files in the group (e.g. print each file or vieweach file in a viewer window or move each file to a new or existingfolder, etc.). A representation of this marked group appears as a folderin the user-configurable portion 1003A. An example of such a folder isthe folder 1020 shown in the user-configurable portion 1003A. Byselecting this folder (e.g. by positioning a cursor over the folder 1020and pressing and releasing a mouse button or by pressing another button)the user, as a result of this selection, will cause the display withinthe display region 1005 of the files which have been grouped together ormarked. Alternatively, a separate window may appear showing only theitems which have been marked or grouped. This association or groupingmay be merely temporary or it may be made permanent by retaining a listof all the files which have been grouped and by keeping a folder 1020 orother representations of the grouping within the user-configurable sidebar, such as the side bar 1003A. Certain embodiments may allow multiple,different groupings to exist at the same time, and each of thesegroupings or associations may be merely temporary (e.g. they exist onlywhile the search results window is displayed), or they may be madepermanent by retaining a list of all the files which have been groupedwithin each separate group. It will be appreciated that the files withineach group may have been created from different applications. As notedabove, one of the groupings may be selected and then a user may select acommand which performs a common action (e.g. print or view or move ordelete) on all of the files within the selected group.

FIGS. 11A, 11B, 11C, and 11D show an alternative user interface forallowing a user to input search queries or search parameters. The userinterface shown in these figures appears within the window 1101 whichincludes a user-configurable side bar region 1103A and a systemspecified side bar region 1103B. The window 1101 also includestraditional window controls such as a window resizing control 1131 whichmay be dragged in a conventional graphical user interface manner toresize the window, and the window further includes scrolling controlssuch as controls 1121, 1122, and 1123. The scrolling control 1121 may,for example, be dragged within the scrolling region 1121A or a scrollwheel on a mouse or other input device may be used to cause scrollingwithin a display region 1105. Further, traditional window controlsinclude the title bar 1129 which may be used to move the window around adesktop which is displayed on a display device of a computer system andthe window also includes view buttons 1137 as well as close, minimize,and resize buttons 1134, 1135 and 1136. A back and forward button, suchas the back button 1132, are also provided to allow the user to moveback and forth in a manner which is similar to the back and forthcommands in a web browser. The window 1101 includes a search parametermenu bar 1111 which includes a “search by” pull down menu 1112 and a“sort by” pull down menu 1114. The “search by” pull down menu 1112allows a user to specify the particular search parameter by selectingfrom the options which appear in the pull down menu once it is activatedas shown in FIG. 11B. In particular, the pull down menu 1113 shows oneexample of a pull down menu when the “search by” pull down menu 1112 hasbeen activated. The “sort by” pull down menu 1114 allows a user tospecify how the search results are displayed within a display region1105. In the example shown in FIGS. 11A-11D a user has used the “sortby” pull down menu 1114 to select the “date viewed” criteria to sort thesearch results by. It should also be noted that the user may change thetype of view of the search results by selecting one of the three viewbuttons 1137. For example, a user may select an icon view which is thecurrently selected button among the view buttons 11137, or the user mayselect a list view or a column view.

FIG. 11B shows the result of the user's activation of a “search by” pulldown menu 1112 which causes the display of the menu 1113 which includesa plurality of options from which the user may choose to perform asearch by. It will be appreciated that there are a number of differentways for a user to activate the “search by” pull down menu 1112. One wayincludes the use of a cursor, such as a pointer on a display which iscontrolled by a cursor control device, such as a mouse. The cursor ispositioned over the region associated with the “search by” menu title(which is the portion within the search parameter menu bar 1111 whichcontains the words “search by”) and then the user indicates theselection of the menu title by pressing a button, such as a mouse'sbutton, to cause the pull down menu to appear, which in this case is themenu 1113 shown in FIG. 11B. At this point, the user may continue tomove the cursor to point to a particular option within the menu, such asthe “time” option. This may result in the display of a submenu to theleft or to the right of the menu 1113. This submenu may be similar tothe submenu 719A or to the menu 1214 shown in FIG. 12A. If the “kind”option is selected in the menu 1113, the submenu may include a genericlist of the different kinds of documents, such as images, photos,movies, text, music, PDF documents, email documents, etc. or the listmay include references to specific program names such as PhotoShop,Director, Excel, Word, etc. or it may include a combination of genericnames and specific names. FIG. 11C shows the result of the user havingselected PhotoShop type of documents from a submenu of the “kind” optionshown in menu 1113. This results in the display of the search parametermenu bar 1111A shown in FIG. 11C which includes a highlighted selection1111B which indicates that the PhotoShop type of documents will besearched for. The search parameter menu bar 1111 appears below thesearch parameter menu bar 1111A as shown in FIG. 11C. The user may thenspecify additional search parameters by again using the “search by” pulldown menu 1112 or by typing text into the text entry field 1109. Forexample, from the state of the window 1101 shown in FIG. 11C, the usermay select the “search by” pull down menu 1112 causing the display of amenu containing a plurality of options, such as the options shown withinthe menu 1113 or alternative options such as those which relate toPhotoShop documents (e.g. the various fields in the metadata forPhotoShop type of documents). A combination of such fields containedwithin metadata for PhotoShop type documents and other generic fields(e.g. time, file size, and other parameters) may appear in a menu, suchas the menu 1113 which is activated by selecting the “search by” pulldown menu. The user may then select another criteria such as the timecriteria. In this case, the window 1101 displays a new search parametermenu bar 1115 which allows a user to specify a particular time. The usermay select one of the times on the menu bar 1115 or may activate a pulldown menu by selecting the menu title “time,” which is shown as the menutitle 1116. The state of the window 1101 shown in FIG. 11D would thensearch for all PhotoShop documents created in the last 30 days or 7 daysor 2 days or today or at any time, depending on the particular timeperiod selected by the user.

FIGS. 12A, 12B, 12C and 12D show another example of a user interface forallowing the creation of search queries for searching metadata and otherdata and for displaying the results of the search performed using asearch query. The different implementation shown in FIGS. 12A-12D showsa user interface presentation in a column mode; this can be seen bynoting the selection of the column button, which is the rightmost buttonin the view buttons 1237 shown in FIG. 12A. The window 1201 has twocolumns 1211 and the display region 1205, while the window 1251 of FIG.12C has three columns which are columns 1257, 1259, and the displayregion 1255, and the window 1271 has three columns which are columns1277, 1279, and the display region 1275.

The window 1201 shown in FIGS. 12A and 12B includes a display region1205 which shows the results of a search; these results may be showndynamically as the user enters search parameters or the results may beshown only after the user has instructed the system to perform thesearch (e.g. by selecting a “perform search” command). The window 1201includes conventional window controls, such as a resizing control 1231,a scrolling control 1221, a title bar 1229 which may be used to move thewindow, a window close button, a window minimize button, and a windowresize button 1234, 1235, and 1236, respectively. The window 1201 alsoincludes a user-configurable side bar region 1203A and a systemspecified side bar region 1203B. It can be seen from FIG. 12A that abrowse mode has been selected as indicated by the highlighted “browse”icon 1203C in the system specified side bar region 1203B. The window1201 also includes a text entry region 1209, which a user may use toenter text for a search, and the window 1201 also includes view selectorbuttons 1237.

A column 1211 of window 1201 allows a user to select various searchparameters by selecting one of the options which in turn causes thedisplay of a submenu that corresponds to the selected option. In thecase of FIG. 12A, the user has selected the “kind” option 1212 and thenhas used the submenu 1214 to select the “photos” option from thesubmenu, resulting in an indicator 1213 (photos) to appear in the column1211 under the “kind” option as shown in FIG. 12A. It can also be seenthat the user has previously selected the “time” option in the column1211 and has selected from a submenu brought up when the “time” optionwas selected the “past week” search parameter. When the user hasfinished making selections of the various options and suboptions fromboth the column 1112 and any of the corresponding submenus which appear,then the display showed in FIG. 12B appears. Note that the submenus areno longer present and that the user has completed the selection of thevarious options and suboptions which specify the search parameters.Column 1211 in FIG. 12B provides feedback to the user indicating theexact nature of the search query (in this case a search for all photosdated in the past week), and the results which match the search queryare shown in the display region 1205.

FIGS. 12C and 12D show an alternative embodiment in which the submenuswhich appear on a temporary basis in the embodiment of FIGS. 12A and 12Bare replaced by an additional column which does not disappear after aselection is made. In particulars the column 1259 of the window 1251functions in the same manner as the submenu 1214 except that it remainswithin the window 1251 after a selection is made (wherein the submenu1214 is removed from the window after the user makes the selection fromthe submenu). The column 1279 of window 1271 of FIG. 12D is similar tothe column 1259. The window 1251 includes a side bar which has auser-configurable side bar region 1253A and a system defined side barregion 1253B. The system specified side bar region 1253B includes a“browser” selection region 1254 which has a clear button 1258 which theuser may select to clear the current search query. The window 1271 ofFIG. 12D provides an alternative interface for clearing the searchquery. The window 1271 also includes a user configurable side bar region1273A and a system specified side bar region 1273B, but the clearbutton, rather than being with the “search” region 1274 is at the top ofthe column 1277. The user may clear the current search parameter byselecting the button 1283 as shown in FIG. 12D.

FIG. 13A shows another embodiment of a window 1301 which displays searchresults within a display region 1302. The window 1301 may be acloseable, minimizeable, resizeable, and moveable window having aresizing control 1310, a title bar 1305 which may be used to move thewindow, a text entry region 1306 and a user configurable portion 1303,and a system specified portion 1304. The window 1301 further includesbuttons for selecting various views, including an icon view, a listview, and a column view. Currently, the list view button 1316 has beenselected, causing the display of the search results in a list viewmanner within the display region 1302. It can be seen that the text(“button”) has been entered into the text entry region 1306 and this hascaused the system to respond with the search results shown in thedisplay region 1302. The user has specified a search in every locationby selecting “everywhere” button 1317. Further, the user has searchedfor any kind of document by selecting the “kind” option from the pulldown menu 1315 and by selecting the “any” option in the pull down menu1319. The where or location slice 1307 includes a “+” button which maybe used to add further search parameters, and similarly, the slice 1308includes a “+” and a “−” button for adding or deleting searchparameters, respectively. The slice 1307 further includes a “save”button 1309 which causes the current search query to be saved in theform of a folder which is added to the user configurable portion 1303for use later. This is described further below and may be referred to asa “smart folder.” The search input user interface shown in FIGS. 13A and13B is available within, in certain embodiments, each and every windowcontrolled by a graphical user interface file management system, such asa Finder program which runs on the Macintosh or Windows Explorer whichruns on Microsoft Windows. This interface includes the text entry region1306 as well as the slices 1307 and 1308.

The window 1301 shown in FIG. 13B shows the activation of a menu byselecting the search button 1323A, causing a display of a menu havingtwo entries 1323 and 1325. Entry 1323 displays recently performedsearches so that a user may merely recall a prior search by selectingthe prior search and cause the prior search to be run again. The menuselection 1325 allows the user to clear the list of recent searches inthe menu.

FIGS. 14A, 14B, and 14C show examples of another window in a graphicaluser interface file system, such as the Finder which runs on theMacintosh operating system. These windows show the results of aparticular search and also the ability to save and use a smart folderwhich saves a prior search. The window 1401 shown in FIG. 14A includes adisplay region 1403, a user configurable region 1405, a smart folder1406, a system specified region 1407, an icon view button 1409, a listview button 1410, and a column view button 1411. The window 1401 alsoincludes a text entry region 1415 and a location slice 1416 which may beused to specify the location for the search, which slice also includes asave button 1417. Additional slices below the slice 1416 allow the userto specify further details with respect to the search, in this casespecifying types of documents which are images which were last viewedthis week. The user has set the search parameters in this manner byselecting the “kind” option from the pull down menu 1419 and byselecting the “images” type from the pull down menu 1420 and byselecting the “last viewed” option from pull down menu 1418 and byselecting “this week” from the pull down menu 1422. The user has alsoselected “everywhere” by selecting the button 1421 so that the searchwill be performed on all disks and storage devices connected to thissystem. The results are shown within the display region 1403. The usercan then save the search query by selecting the “save” button 1417 andmay name the saved search query as “this week's images” to produce thesmart folder 1406 as shown in the user configurable portion 1405. Thisallows the user to repeat this search at a later time by merelyselecting the smart folder 1406 which causes the system to perform a newsearch again, and all data which matches the search criteria will bedisplayed within the display region 1403. Thus, after several weeks, arepeating of this search by selecting the smart folder 1406 will producean entirely different list if none of the files displayed in the displayregion 1403 of FIG. 14A are viewed in the last week from the time inwhich the next search is performed by selecting the smart folder 1406.

FIG. 14B shows a way in which a user may sort or further search withinthe search results specified by a saved search, such as a smart folder.In the case of FIG. 14B, the user has selected the smart folder 1406 andhas then entered text “jpg” 1425 in the text entry region 1415. This hascaused the system to filter or further limit the search results obtainedfrom the search query saved as the smart folder 1406. Thus, PhotoShopfiles and other files such as TIF files and GIF files are excluded fromthe search results displayed within the display region 1403 of FIG. 14Bbecause the user has excluded those files by adding an additional searchcriteria specified by the text 1425 in the text entry region 1415. Itcan be seen that the “jpg” text entry is ANDed logically with the othersearch parameters to achieve the search results displayed in the displayregion 1403. It can also be seen that the user has selected the iconview by selecting the icon view button 1409. Thus, it is possible for auser to save a search query and use it later and to further limit theresults of the search query by performing a search on the results of thesearch query to further limit the search results. An aspect of thisfurther limiting of the search results from a saved search query isdescribed below and may be referred to as hierarchical smart folders.

FIG. 14C shows the window 1401 and shows the search results displayedwithin the display region 1403, where the results are based upon thesaved search specified by the smart folder 1406. The user has caused apull down menu 1427 to appear by selecting the pull down region 1427A.The pull down region 1427 includes several options which a user mayselect. These options include hiding the search criteria or saving thesearch (which is similar to selecting the button 1417) or showing viewoptions or opening the selected file. This allows the user, for example,to hide the search criteria, thereby causing the slice 1416 and theother search parameters to be removed from the window 1401 which is amoveable, resizeable, minimizeable, and closeable window.

FIG. 14D shows an example of a user interface which allows the user tospecify the appearance of a smart folder, such as the smart folder 1406.

A saved search folder may also be created before doing a search ratherthan after a search has been performed. An exemplary method for creatinga saved search folder before a search is performed is shown in FIG. 23.In operation 2301, a data processing system receives a command to createa new saved search folder. This command may be from the selection of anoption in a pull down menu or from a user's activation of a button on agraphical user interface. In operation 2303, the system may then displayan interface for selecting or inputting search input parameters. Thesystem then receives, in operation 2305, the inputted search inputparameters specified by a user as well as a name of the new saved searchfolder. Then in operation 2307, the system performs the search specifiedby the saved search folder and displays the search results in aninterface, such as a window.

FIGS. 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 show examples of graphical user interfacesfor creating, editing, and using one or more saved search folders, suchas a “smart” folder. Window 2401 may be a typical window found in theMacintosh 10.3 operating system (referred to as “Panther”), and thus thewindow may be resizeable, moveable, closeable, and capable of beingminimized through the activation of various interface features. Thewindow 2401 also includes a side bar region 2405 and a main displayregion 2403. The main display region 2403 shows, in FIG. 24, the resultsof a search. The user has decided to save this search and has instructedthe system to do so by activating a button, such as the “save” button2408. This can cause the display of the naming panel 2407 which includesa text field 2409 into which a user may enter the name for the savedsearch folder. The panel 2407 also includes a location menu 2411 whichthe user can use to select the location of the saved search folder. Thepanel 2407 also includes a save button 2415 and a cancel button 2417 aswell as a check box 2413. Activation of the save button 2415 causes thesmart folder to be saved in the location specified by the location menu2411. If the check box 2413 is checked, then a representation, such asan icon, of the saved search folder will appear in the side bar 2405. Ifthe user activates the cancel button 2417, then the system closes thenaming panel 2407 and the search query is not saved as a saved searchfolder.

FIG. 25 shows the window 2401 after the user has entered text into thetext input field 2409. The user can then save the new saved searchfolder by activating the save button 2415 (e.g. by positioning a cursorover the save button 2415 and by pressing a mouse button or by otherwisesignaling to the computer to activate the button). The saving of the newsmart folder may, in one embodiment, cause the system to close thefolder and also cause an icon of the saved search folder to appear inthe side bar. FIG. 26 shows an example of a saved search folder whichhas been added to the side bar. In particular, the window 2601 includesa side bar 2603 which displays an icon of a saved search folder 2605which was created from the operations shown in FIG. 25. The first panel2609 of the window 2601 shows folders which are contained within thevolume “Panther HD” indicated by icon 2607. The selection of the icon2605, which represents the saved search folder, causes the system toperform the search specified by the saved search folder and to displaythe search results within a window. This can be seen in FIG. 27 in whichthe user has selected the icon 2605 in the side bar region 2603, causingthe display of a plurality of files 2707 within the main display portion2709 of the window 2701. The files 2707 represent the results of thiscurrent search performed through the use of the saved search folderwhich specifies a saved search query. These results represent all of thecurrent files which match the search query. Buttons 2713 and 2715 allowa user to change the views within the main portion 2709 from a list viewshown in FIG. 27 to an icon view. Currently, button 2713 has beenactivated, resulting in the list view. The user may edit the savedsearch folder by selecting the edit button 2711 which results in thedisplay of the window 2701 shown in FIG. 28. The edit button changesfrom an edit button to a save button 2719 and an upper portion of thewindow now includes a text entry field 2717 as well as pull down menuswhich allow for the selection of various search input parameters. Thepull down menu 2731 allows for the selection of a type of a search inputparameter, such as a “kind” type, and the pull down menu 2729 allows forthe selection of a further specification of that type. In the exampleshown in FIG. 28, the user has selected “kind” from the pull down menu2731 and “images” from the pull down menu 2729 and has entered the word“test” in the text input field 2717. This represents the originallysaved search input or search query for the images smart folder savedfrom the interface shown in FIG. 25. This may be edited by changing thetext within the text input field 2717 or by selecting a differentparameter from either of the pull down menus 2731 and 2729. Furthermore,the search input may be varied or edited by adding additional searchparameters by selecting the “addition” button 2722, or a searchparameter may be removed by selecting the “subtraction” button 2721. Thewindow 2721 in its upper portion includes a slice 2726 which allows forthe selection of various search locations and which also specifies, byindicator 2725, the presently selected location. The window alsoincludes the name of the saved search folder in the title region 2727.

One attribute of windows which display search results, according to atleast certain embodiments of the present invention, is the ability forlive updating, wherein the results in the search results window aredynamically updated as new documents are created or received by thesystem which is executing the search. FIG. 29 shows an exemplary methodfor providing live updating of search results windows. In operation2901, the system receives a command to perform a search on the contentof files or metadata of the files. This input may be a result of openinga saved search folder or the result of typing text in a search inputfield or by selecting one or more search parameters and causing thesystem to do a search. In operation 2903, the system responds bydisplaying the search results in a search window. While this searchwindow is still displayed, the user may create or receive new files,such as word processing files or documents or email messages, some ofwhich match the search query of the search window which is still open.This is shown in operation 2905 of FIG. 29. Then in operation 2907, thesystem updates automatically the search results in the search windowdynamically as the new documents are created or received. Thus, as newdocuments which match the search query are created or received, then arepresentation of them appear within the search result window withouthaving to close and reopen the window and without having to select acommand to refresh the window.

FIGS. 30, 31, 32, 33, and 34 illustrate exemplary embodiments in which aplurality of saved search folders have a hierarchical relationship amongthemselves, such as a predetermined relationship in a graphical userinterface. FIG. 30 shows one method for creating such a hierarchy. Inoperation 3001, a first search query is created; this may occur as aresult of receiving user input which specifies this first search queryand user input which specifies that the first search query is to besaved. The system responds in operation 3003 by saving the first searchquery and by associating it with a first graphical user interface folderin response to the user command. Then in operation 3005 a second searchquery is created, and this second search query is saved and associatedwith a second graphical user interface folder in response to a usercommand in operation 3007. Then in operation 3009, the second graphicaluser interface folder is displayed as a subfolder of the first graphicaluser interface folder. This is one exemplary form of a predeterminedrelationship or hierarchical relationship between the two folders. FIGS.31 and 32 show a portion of a graphical user interface which includesone or more windows which may overlap. In particular, FIG. 31 shows thewindow 3100 which includes a main display portion 3103 and a titleportion 3101. Within the main display portion 3103, a plurality ofitems, which represent the items found in the first search query, aredisplayed, including items 3105, 3107 and 3109. The icon 3109 representsa second saved search folder which may be opened into a second windowusing conventional graphical user interface techniques. For example, theuser may position a mouse over the icon 3101 and select an open commandor rapidly depress a button twice, causing the display of the window3150 shown in FIG. 32, which overlaps the window 3100. The window 3150shows the search results of the second saved search which represents thesecond smart folder within the main display portion 3153 of the window3150. The second smart folder, or second saved search folder, mayrepresent a more specific search created by adding additional searchparameters in a Boolean AND operation. The graphical user interface fora hierarchy of smart folders may use overlapping windows, with one ormore folders nested within another folder, as in the case of the exampleshown in FIGS. 31 and 32 or may use a hierarchical view within the samewindow, as in the case of FIGS. 5 and 6 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,486,897 whichis, for the purposes of these FIGS. 5 and 6, incorporated herein byreference. Other alternative hierarchical views may also be used, suchas column views or Web browser style views (which use back and forwardbuttons or commands to move within a hierarchy, optionally in the samewindow).

FIG. 33 shows an example of a hierarchy created by adding searchparameters with a Boolean AND operation. The hierarchy 3301 shown inFIG. 33 includes a first smart folder which represents a saved searchquery which causes the search for all documents which have been modifiedin the last week. The second smart folder modifies that first searchquery by adding a “kind” parameter which specifies a search for images(e.g. JPG or PhotoShop files, etc.). Thus, the second saved search queryrepresented by the second smart folder 3305 searches for all imagesmodified in the last week. A second smart folder may be graphicallynested within the first smart folder as shown in FIGS. 31 and 32 or maybe displayed or represented in other fashions to show the predeterminedrelationship between the two folders. The third smart folder, 3307, mayalso be considered nested within or a subfolder of the first smartfolder 3303. The third smart folder represents a saved search querywhich searches for all documents of a text type (e.g. Microsoft Word“.doc” documents, “.txt”, “.rtf”, and other types of text files) thathave been modified in the last week. The fourth smart folder 3309 andthe fifth smart folder 3311 may be considered to be subfolders of thethird smart folder 3307 or otherwise enclosed within or dependent uponthe third smart folder. Thus, for example, the fourth and fifth smartfolders may be shown as folders within the contents (e.g. search resultsof) the third smart folder in a manner which is similar to that shown inFIG. 31. The fourth smart folder 3309 represents a saved search querywhich causes a search for all text type documents modified in the lastweek and which were authored by “John.” The fifth smart folder 3311represents a saved search query which causes the search for all texttype documents modified in the last week and which were authored by“Joe.” It can be seen that both the fourth and fifth smart folders canbe obtained from the third smart folder by editing or modifying thesaved search query which is represented by the third smart folder. Forexample, the saved search query of the third smart folder may be editedto include (through a Boolean AND operator) an author input field inwhich the name of the author, such as Joe or John, can be specified.

The user interface provided by a hierarchy of saved search foldersprovides a powerful mechanism to browse user files on a data processingsystem. In the example shown in FIG. 33, a single smart folderencapsulates or encloses four other folders. By opening the first smartfolder, the user will see a display of search results showing alldocuments which have been modified in the last week, and the searchresults, at least in certain embodiments, will also include four folderswhich represent the second, third, fourth, and fifth smart folders. Theuser may then “tunnel” into the different folders (which may be savedwith names that indicate the content of the folders or which specify thesearch query) and thereby provide or obtain more specific searchresults. A window displaying the search results obtained by the firstsmart folder 3303 will include icons representing at least the secondsmart folder 3305 and the third smart folder 3307. A hierarchical viewwithin this window may also optionally display the fourth and fifthsmart folders 3309 and 3311 (e.g. in an indented manner to show thenesting or hierarchy of the smart folders). The user may, from thewindow displaying the results of the first saved search, open the thirdsmart folder, causing the display of search results obtained by thethird smart folder, which results will also include at least arepresentation of the fourth and fifth smart folders 3309 and 3311. Theuser may continue to “dig” into the fourth or fifth smart folders tolook for a file. These smart folders may be implemented within or inconjunction with a file management system (e.g. such as the Finder onMacintosh operating systems (OS) or Windows Explorer on Microsoft'sWindows OS) or within an application program, such as an email program(e.g. Apple Computer's Mail program or IBM's Lotus Notes program) whichincludes the ability for the user to create folders within an email “inbox” to store emails (e.g. received emails) within the user createdfolders. The user created folders could be implemented as one or moresmart folders (e.g. each being a saved search folder) which can searchall the saved emails (or a selected group of saved emails) based on asearch query which causes a search through content (e.g. indexedcontent) of the saved emails as well as metadata for those saved emails.User interfaces for implementing this may employ folders or othergraphical representations; see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,613,101.

FIG. 34 shows an exemplary embodiment in which the system automaticallychanges search queries for subfolders in the hierarchy of saved searchfolders. In operation 3401, a first search query is saved as a firstfolder or enclosure, such as a first smart folder. In operation 3403, asecond search query is saved as a second folder or enclosure, such as asecond smart folder which is hierarchically nested within the firstfolder. The user, in operation 3405, changes the first search query. Forexample, the first search query is changed from a location of documentswithin a work folder which have an image type to a query specified by alocation within the work folder and which are also image type files andhave been authored by John. Since the second smart folder is containedwithin or hierarchically dependent upon the first smart folder, thesecond search query is automatically modified by the system in operation3407 in response to the user's changing of the first search query. Forexample, the system would automatically change the second search queryfrom “location=work folder AND kind=images AND date=last week” to asearch query of “location=work folder AND author=John AND kind=imagesAND date=last week.” In this manner, if a user has specified to thesystem that the hierarchy of the folders is to be maintained throughchanges of the search queries, the system will automatically adjustdependent search queries in a manner which is similar to that shown inFIG. 34.

FIGS. 35, 36 and 37 illustrate exemplary graphical user interfaces forediting and displaying a saved search folder. The window 3501 shown inFIG. 35 includes a side bar region 3503 which includes an icon 3505which represents the smart folder “last button psd.” The user hasselected the icon 3505, causing the display of the search resultsperformed in response to the saved search query represented by the smartfolder. The main display portion 3507 of the window 3501 shows thesearch results. The window also includes a title 3509 which shows thename of the smart folder. The window 3501 also includes an edit button3511 which the user may activate to allow editing of the saved searchquery. Activating the button 3511 causes the display of the window 3501a in which a search input region 3600 is displayed. The edit button nowchanges to a save button 3512 which may be activated if the usermodifies the search query to save another search query as a new smartfolder. If the search query is modified by ANDing in a Boolean operationan additional search parameter, then the search may be consideredhierarchically dependent upon the original search and thus twohierarchical smart folders may be created through an editing operationof the first smart folder. The search query may be edited using thevarious controls within the input region 3600. This region includes alocation slice which specifies a location, such as everywhere 3601 andalso includes a text entry field 3603 into which text may be entered. Inthe case shown in FIG. 36, the word “button” has been entered into thetext entry field 3603 such that the search query searches for any AdobePhotoShop document containing the word “button” which was viewed thisweek. The additional parameters of the kind of document and the date ofthe document are specified by the pull down menus 3605, 3607, 3609, and3611. Additional search parameters may be added to the search byselecting one of the + buttons or one of the input parameters may beremoved from the search query by selecting the appropriate-button in theright portion of the input region 3600. Thus, for example, if the userwanted to add a search parameter relating to the author of a document,the user can select one of the + buttons and from a pull down menuselect the author input attribute and then select a particular authorfrom the menu. In the example shown in FIG. 36, the current saved searchquery represented by the last button psd smart folder has been specifiedby selecting the “kind” attribute from the pull down menu 3605 and byspecifying Adobe PhotoShop as the particular type or kind from the pulldown menu 3607. Further, the date parameter has been specified byselecting the “date viewed” parameter from the pull down menu 3609 andthen selecting the “this week” input from the pull down menu 3611. Afterthe user has finished modifying the search query, the user may activatethe save button 3512, resulting in the display of the naming panel 3701shown in FIG. 37. This panel includes a text input field 3703 into whicha user may enter the new name for the new smart folder. It also includesa location menu 3705, from which the user may select the location forstoring the new smart folder. The panel 3701 also includes a save button3711, a cancel button 3709, and a check box 3707, each of which functionin a manner which is similar to the corresponding elements shown in FIG.25. If the user activates the save button 3711, a new smart folder willbe created. If the user created this new smart folder by adding anadditional search input parameter which is ANDed in a Boolean fashionwith the previous saved search query, then a hierarchical set of folderswill be created in at least certain embodiments of the presentinvention.

FIGS. 15A, 15B, 15C, and 15D show an example of a system wide searchinput user interface and search result user interface. In one particularexemplary embodiment, these user interfaces are available on the entiresystem for all applications which run on the system and all files andmetadata, and even address book entries within an address book program,such as a personal information manager, and calendar entries within acalendar program, and emails within an email program, etc. In oneexemplary embodiment, the system begins performing the search and beginsdisplaying the results of the search as the user types text into a textentry field, such as the text entry field 1507. The search results areorganized by categories and are displayed as a short list which isintentionally abbreviated in order to present only a selected number ofthe most relevant (scored) matches or hits to the search query. The usercan ask for the display of all the hits by selecting a command, such asthe “show all” command 1509. FIG. 15A shows a portion of a displaycontrolled by a data processing system. This portion includes a menu bar1502 which has at its far end a search menu command 1505. The user canselect the search menu command by positioning a cursor, using a mouse,for example, over the search menu command 1505 and by pressing a buttonor by otherwise activating or selecting a command. This causes a displayof a text entry region 1507 into which a user can enter text. In theexample shown in FIG. 15A, which is a portion of the display, the userhas entered the text “shakeit” causing the display of a search resultregion immediately below a “show all” command region 1509 which isitself immediately below the text entry region 1507. It can be seen thatthe hits or matches are grouped into categories (“documents” and “PDFdocuments”) shown by categories 1511 and 1513 within the search resultregion 1503. FIG. 15B shows another example of a search. In this case, alarge number of hits was obtained (392 hits), only a few of which areshown in the search result region 1503. Again, the hits are organized bycategories 1511 and 1513. Each category may be restricted in terms ofthe number of items displayed within the search result region 1503 inorder to permit the display of multiple categories at the same timewithin the search result region. For example, the number of hits in thedocuments category may greatly exceed the available display space withinthe search result region 1503, but the hits for this category arelimited to a predetermined or dynamically determinable number of entrieswithin the search result region 1503 for the category 1511. Anadditional category, “top hit” is selected based on a scoring orrelevancy using techniques which are known in the art. The user mayselect the “show all” command 1509 causing the display of a window, suchas window 1601 shown in FIG. 16A. FIG. 15C shows a display of agraphical user interface of one embodiment of the invention whichincludes the menu bar 1502 and the search menu command 1505 on the menubar 1502. FIG. 15D shows another example of the search result region1503 which appeared after a search of the term “safari” was entered intothe text entry region 1507. It can be seen from the search result region1503 of FIG. 15D that the search results are again grouped intocategories. Another search result window 1520 is also shown in the userinterface of FIG. 15D. It can be seen that application programs areretrieved as part of the search results, and a user may launch any oneof these application programs by selecting it from the search resultregion, thereby causing the program to be launched.

FIGS. 16A and 16B show examples of search result windows which may becaused to appear by selecting the “show all” command 1509 in FIG. 15A or15B. Alternatively, these windows may appear as a result of the userhaving selected a “find” command or a some other command indicating thata search is desired. Moreover, the window 1601 shown in FIGS. 16A and16B may appear in response to either of the selection of a show allcommand or the selection of a find command. The window 1601 includes atext entry region 1603, a group by menu selection region 1605, a sort bymenu selection region 1607, and a where menu selection region 1609. Thegroup by selection region 1605 allows a user to specify the manner inwhich the items in the search results are grouped according to. In theexample shown in FIG. 16A, the user has selected the “kind” option fromthe group by menu selection region 1605, causing the search results tobe grouped or sorted according to the kind or type of document or file.It can be seen that the type of file includes “html” files, image files,PDF files, source code files, and other types of files as shown in FIG.16A. Each type or kind of document is separated from the other documentsby being grouped within a section and separated by headers from theother sections. Thus, headers 1611, 1613, 1615, 1617, 1619, 1621, and1623 designate each of the groups and separate one group from the othergroups. This allows a user to focus on evaluating the search resultsaccording to certain types of documents. Within each group, such as thedocument groups or the folder groups, the user has specified that theitems are to be sorted by date, because the user has selected the dateoption within the sort by menu region 1607. The user has also specifiedthat all storage locations are to be searched by selecting “everywhere”from the where menu selection region 1609. Each item in the searchresult list includes an information button 1627 which may be selected toproduce the display of additional information which may be availablefrom the system. An example of such additional information is shown inFIG. 17 in which a user has selected the information button 1627 foritem 1635, resulting in the display of an image 1636 corresponding tothe item as well as additional information 1637. Similarly, the user hasselected the information button for another item 1630 to produce thedisplay of an image of the item 1631 as well as additional information1632. The user may remove this additional information from the displayby selecting the close button 1628 which causes the display of theinformation for item 1635 to revert to the appearance for that itemshown in FIG. 16A. The user may collapse an entire group to hide theentries or search results from that group by selecting the collapsebutton 1614 shown in FIG. 16A, thereby causing the disappearance of theentries in this group as shown in FIG. 16B. The user may cause theseitems to reappear by selecting the expand button 1614A as shown in FIG.16B to thereby revert to the display of the items as shown in FIG. 16A.

The search results user interface shown in FIGS. 16A and 16B presentsonly a limited number of matches or hits within each category. In theparticular example of these figures, only the five top (most relevant ormost highly sorted) hits are displayed. This can be seen by noticing theentry at the bottom of each list within a group which specifies how manymore hits are within that group; these hits can be examined by selectingthis indicator, such as indicator 1612, which causes the display of allof the items in the documents category or kind for the search for“button” which was entered into the text entry region 1603. Furtherexamples of this behavior are described below and are shown inconjunction with FIGS. 15A and 18B. It will be appreciated that window1601 is a closeable and resizable and moveable window and includes aclose button and a resizing control 1625A.

FIGS. 18A and 18B illustrate another window 1801 which is very similarto the window 1601. The window 1801 includes a text entry region 1803, agroup by menu selection region 1805, a sort by menu selection region1807, and a where menu selection region 1809, each of which function ina manner which is similar to the regions 1605, 1607, and 1609respectively of FIG. 16A. Each item in a list view within the window1801 includes an information button 1827, allowing a user to obtainadditional information beyond that listed for each item shown in thewindow 1801. The window 1801 further includes headers 1811, 1813, 1815,1817, 1819, 1821, and 1823 which separate each group of items, groupedby the type or kind of document, and sorted within each group by date,from the other groups. A collapse button 1814 is available for each ofthe headers. The embodiment shown in FIGS. 18A and 18B shows the abilityto switch between several modes of viewing the information. For example,the user may display all of the hits within a particular group byselecting the indicator 1812 shown in FIG. 18A which results in thedisplay of all of the images files within the window 1801 within theregion 1818A. The window is scrollable, thereby allowing the user toscroll through all the images. The user can revert back to the listingof only five of the most relevant images by selecting the “show top 5”button 1832 shown in FIG. 18B. Further, the user can select between alist view or an icon view for the images portion shown in FIGS. 18A and18B. The user may select the list view by selecting the list view button1830 or may select the icon view by selecting the icon view button 1831.The list view for the images group is shown in FIG. 16A and the iconview for the images group is shown in FIGS. 18A and 18B. It can be seenthat within a single, moveable, resizable, closeable search resultwindow, that there are two different views (e.g. a list view and an iconview) which are concurrently shown within the window. For example, thePDF documents under the header 1819 are displayed in a list view whilethe images under the header 1817 are displayed in an icon view in FIGS.18A and 18B. It can also be seen from FIGS. 18A and 18B that each imageis shown with a preview which may be capable of live resizing asdescribed in a patent application entitled “Live Content Resizing” byinventors Steve Jobs, Steve Lemay, Jessica Kahn, Sarah Wilkin, DavidHyatt, Jens Alike, Wayne Loofbourrow, and Bertrand Serlet, filed on thesame date as this application, and being assigned to the assignee of thepresent inventions described herein, and which is hereby incorporatedherein by reference.

FIG. 19A shows another example of a search result window which issimilar to the window 1601. The window 1901 shown in FIG. 19A includes atext entry region 1903 and a group by menu selection region 1905 and asort by menu selection region 1907 and a where menu selection region1908. Further, the window includes a close button 1925 and a resizingcontrol 1925A. Text has been entered into the text entry region 1903 toproduce the search results shown in the window 1901. The search resultsagain are grouped by a category selected by a user which in this case isthe people options 1906. This causes the headers 1911, 1913, 1915, and1917 to show the separation of the groups according to names of people.Within each group, the user has selected to sort by the date of theparticular file or document. The user interface shown in FIG. 19A allowsa user to specify an individual's name and to group by people to lookfor communications between two people, for example. FIG. 19B showsanother way in which a user can group a text search (“imran”) in amanner which is different from that shown in FIG. 19A. In the case ofFIG. 19B, the user has selected a flat list from the group by menuselection region 1905 and has selected “people” from the sort by menuregion 1907. The resulting display in window 1901A is without headersand thus it appears as a flat list.

FIG. 19C shows the user interface of another search result window 1930which includes a text entry region 1903 and the selection regions 1905,1907, and 1908 along with a scrolling control 1926. The results shown inthe window 1930 have been grouped by date and sorted within each groupby date. Thus, the headers 1932, 1934, 1936, 1938, and 1940 specify timeperiods such as when the document was last modified (e.g. last modifiedtoday, or yesterday, or last week). Also shown within the search resultswindow 1930 is the information button 1942 which may be selected toreveal further information, such as an icon 1945 and additionalinformation 1946 as shown for one entry under the today group. Thisadditional information may be removed by selecting the contractionbutton 1944.

FIG. 19D shows a search result window 1950 in which a search for thetext string “te” is grouped by date but the search was limited to a“home” folder as specified in the where menu selection region 1908. Timespecific headers 1952, 1954, 1956, and 1958 separate items within onegroup from the other groups as shown in FIG. 19D.

FIG. 19E shows an alternative embodiment of a search result window. Inthis embodiment, the window 1970 includes elements which are similar towindow 1901 such as the selection regions 1905, 1907, and a scrollingcontrol 1926 as well as a close button 1925 and a resizing control1925A. The search result window 1970 further includes a “when” menuselection region 1972 which allows the user to specify a searchparameter based on time in addition to the text entered into the textentry region 1903. It can be seen from the example shown in FIG. 19Ethat the user has decided to group the search results by the categoryand to sort within each group by date. This results in the headers 1973,1975, 1977, and 1979 as shown in FIG. 19E.

FIG. 20 shows an exemplary method of operating a system wide menu forinputting search queries, such as the system wide menu available byselecting the search menu command 1505 shown in FIG. 15A or 15B, or 15C.In operation 2001, the system displays a system wide menu for inputtingsearch queries. This may be the search menu command 1505. The user, inoperation 2003, inputs a search, and as the search query is beinginputted, the system begins performing and begins displaying the searchresults before the user finishes inputting the search query. This givesimmediate feedback and input to the user as the user enters thisinformation. The system is, in operation 2005, performing a searchthrough files, metadata for the files, emails within an email program,address book entries within an address book program, calendar entrieswithin a calendar program, etc. The system then, in operation 2007,displays an abbreviated (e.g. incomplete) list of hits if there are morethan a certain number of hits. An example of this abbreviated listing isshown in FIG. 15B. The listing may be sorted by relevance and segregatedinto groups such as categories or types of documents. Then in operation2009, the system receives a command from the user to display all thehits and in operation 2011 the system displays the search resultswindow, such as the window 1601 shown in FIG. 16A. This window may havethe ability to display two different types of views, such as an iconview and a list view within the same closeable, resizable, and moveablewindow. It will be appreciated that the searching, which is performed asthe user is typing and the displaying of results as the user is typingmay include the searching through the metadata files created frommetadata extracted from files created by many different types ofsoftware programs.

FIGS. 21, and 22A, 22B, 22C, and 22D will now be referred to whiledescribing another aspect of the inventions. This aspect relates to amethod of selecting a group of files, such as a group of individual datafiles. In an exemplary method of this aspect, a data processing systemreceives a selection of a plurality of items, such as data files,folders (e.g. graphical user interface representations ofsubdirectories), application programs or a combination of one or more ofthese items. This selection may be performed by one of the manyconventional ways to select a plurality of items such as (a) positioninga cursor at each item individually (e.g. through the movement of amouse) and indicating a selection individually by, for example, pressingand releasing a button, such as a mouse's button; (b) pointing a cursorat a first item in a list and indicating a selection of the first itemand pointing the cursor at a last item in a list of items and indicatinga selection of all items from the first item to the last item in thelist; (c) drawing a selection rectangle by a dragging operation of thecursor, etc. Thus operation 2101 shown in FIG. 21 receives one or moreinputs indicating a selection of a plurality of items. The system inoperation 2103 receives a command requesting both the creation of a newstorage facility (e.g. a folder) and an association of the plurality ofitems with the new storage facility. While the operation 2103 is shownfollowing operation 2101, in certain embodiments operation 2103 mayprecede operation 2101. The association of operation 2103 may be a copyor a move operation. For example, the user may select multiple items andthen command the system to move those items from their existinglocations to a new folder which is created in one operation as a resultof the move and create new folder command. In response to the commandreceived in operation 2103, the system creates a new storage facility,such as a new folder, with a predetermined directory path name or a userspecified path name and the system further associates the selectedplurality of items with the new storage facility. This association maybe either a move or a copy operation. A copy operation would typicallyinvolve making a copy of each selected item and storing the item with apath name that reflects the storage of the item within the new folderhaving a predetermined directory path name or a user specified directorypath name. A move operation, in which the items are moved into the newfolder, may merely change the path names associated with each of theselected items (rather than making a copy of the items) which changedpath names will reflect the new file system location (e.g. within thesubdirectory of the new folder) of the selected items.

FIGS. 22A-22D show one example of the method of FIG. 21. A desktop 2201on a display device is shown containing multiple windows and also anicon 2227 on the desktop. A cursor 2211 is also shown on the desktop.The windows 2203, 2205, and 2207 each contain a plurality of items shownas icons. In particular, window 2203 includes a data file represented byicon 2215 in a folder (e.g. a graphical representation of a subdirectoryin a file storage system) represented by icon 2217. The window 2205includes a program icon 2223 and a document icon 2219 and anotherdocument icon 2225 and a folder icon 2221. The window 2207 shows a listview of several files including “File B.” The user may then, using thecursor 2211 or using other conventional user interface techniques,select multiple items. This may be done with one input or more inputswhich indicate the selection of multiple items. FIG. 22B shows theresult of the user having selected icons 2215, 2217, 2223, 2225, 2227,and “File B” in window 2207. It can be seen that the cursor 2211 ispositioned adjacent to the icon 2225 at this point in the operation.Then the user, after having selected a plurality of items, may invokethe command referred to in operation 2103. An example of this is shownin FIG. 22C which represents a portion of the desktop 2101, whichportion is designated 2201A as shown in FIG. 22C. The user has caused apop-up menu 2230 to appear, which pop-up menu includes three options2231, 2232, and 2233. Option 2231 would allow a user to move all theselected items into the trash (e.g. delete them) while options 2232 and2233 relate to the command referred to in operation 2103 of FIG. 21. Inparticular, option 2232 is a command which is selectable by the user tocreate a new folder and, in the same operation, move the items whichhave been selected into the new folder. Option 2233 is a command whichallows the user to, in one operation, create a new folder and copy theselected items into the new folder. In the example shown in FIGS.22A-22D, the user will select option 2232, thereby causing the system tocreate a new storage facility, such as a new folder with a predetermineddirectory name (e.g. “new folder”) or alternatively, a user specifiedpath name. This result is shown in FIG. 22D in which the desktop 2201now includes a new window labeled “new folder” which represents andshows the contents of this new folder, which is also shown as the folder2253 which is a graphical user interface representation of this newfolder.

It will be appreciated that this method may employ various alternatives.For example, a window may appear after the command option 2232 or 2233has been selected, and this window asks for a name for the new folder.This window may display a default name (e.g. “new folder”) in case theuser does not enter a new name. Alternatively, the system may merelygive the new folder or new storage facility a default path name. Also,the system may merely create the new folder and move or copy the itemsinto the new folder without showing the new window as shown in FIG. 22D.

Another aspect of certain embodiments of aspects described herein relateto the presentation of a limited number of items found from a searchquery rather than displaying a full list of items found from the searchquery. In a particular implementation, shown in FIG. 38, a limitednumber of items (e.g. the N most relevant hits, where N is a finitenumber such as 20) is displayed within a non-scrollable display region,such as display region 3801 shown in FIG. 38. This region also includesa command “show all” 3811 which may be selected by the user to displayall of the items found in the search, and the region may also include a“top hit” command such as top hit 3813 shown in FIG. 38. Selection ofthe “show all” command 3811 causes the display of a window which iscapable of showing all of the items found in the search (which may bereferred to as “hits”); examples of such windows are shown in FIGS. 39,40, 41, 42, and 43. The contents of display region 3801 are obtained byperforming a search, which may occur by selecting the icon 3805 on themenu bar 3803, which causes the display of a text entry field 3807, intowhich a user may enter a word or phrase to cause the search to beperformed. The results may appear as a user enters characters in thesearch entry field 3807 or after the user hits a return key or otherwiseinstructs the system to perform a search using the inputted text. Theicon 3809 may be used to either start or stop a search. The items whichare found in the search are ranked according to relevancy and/orrecency. Techniques for ranking files that are found in a searchaccording to recency and/or relevancy are known in the art. This rankingtypically results in the determination of a most relevant file which isshown as the top hit file 3813 for a particular search. The systemidentifies this file as shown in FIG. 38 so that the user can select thefile to be opened. For example, in one embodiment, pressing the returnkey will cause the “show all” window to be displayed, while pressing theenter key or a combination of keys will open the top hit. The itemsfound in the search are grouped and displayed within their categories asshown in FIG. 38. For example, categories 3815 a, 3815 b, 3815 c, 3815d, 3815 e, 3815 f, 3815 g, and 3815 h are all distinct categories havingitems which were found in the search. The total number of hits withinthe display region 3801 is limited to a predetermined number or,alternatively, to some number less than the total number of items whichwere found in the search. In addition, the number of items within eachcategory, such as category 3815 d (which is for html documents) is alsolimited such that it will be less than the total number of items found.This also allows more than one category to be displayed in the listing.The interface provided by the example shown in FIG. 38 allows a user toquickly assimilate a small number of hits. This may facilitate arecognition by the user that the search query was improper. It may alsofacilitate the rapid finding of a particular item. The use of groupingby categories as shown in FIG. 38 also facilitates rapid finding as theuser may be able to examine a category of a document which is beingsearched for and thus can look into that category quickly. FIG. 44 showsan exemplary method for displaying an interface such as that shown inFIG. 38. In operation 4401, a search is performed and the files whichare found are ranked within each category. Optionally, the categoriesthemselves may be ranked; for example, the categories may be rankedbased upon the most relevant file within each category. In operation4403, an abbreviated list is displayed, such as the list shown in thedisplay region 3801 of FIG. 38. This list of search results may bedisplayed in a non-scrollable list, and the list does not show all ofthe items found. For example, if the number M is the number of filesfound in a search, only N number of most relevant files are displayed inthe display region 3801, where N is less than M. Further, the files aregrouped within categories in the list as shown in FIG. 38 and the numberof displayed files in the list within a category is also limited.Concurrently with operation 4403 or at a different time, a top hitselection will be displayed and a show all command may also be displayedas in operation 4405. Operation 4407 indicates the manner in which theuser may cause the show all window to be displayed in certainembodiments or may cause the top hit to be opened in those certainembodiments.

FIGS. 39-43 illustrate a graphical user interface which allows the userto control the manner in which the search results are displayed. In theexample shown in FIG. 39, the window 3901 has the capability ofdisplaying all of the search results from performing the search shown inFIG. 38. Window 3901 thus is capable of displaying all of the searchresults from performing the search shown in FIG. 38. Window 3901 thus iscapable of displaying all 272 results from the search, rather than thelimited number shown in display region 3801. The window 3901 is ascrollable window which includes a scroll control 3911 and scrollingarrow buttons 3912 and 3913 all of which allow for the control of thescrolling of the files displayed within the window 3901. Headings foreach category with the name of the category are included within the maindisplay region of the window 3901. These headings distinguish betweenthe different categories of files, such as folders, html documents,images, PDF files, documents, etc. The headings 3917, 3919, 3925, 3927,and 3929 also include corresponding toggle switches 3917 a, 3919 a, 3925a, 3927 a, and 3929 a which allow for the display of items within eachcategory to be collapsed or expanded depending upon the state of theparticular toggle switch. This is described further below in conjunctionwith FIGS. 42 and 43. The text input field 3902 shows the text that wasentered to cause the search. The group control 3903 allows the user togroup the search results according to a variety of different parameters.In the particular example shown in FIG. 39, the user has selected the“kind” parameter to group the search results by. In other words, thetype of document (e.g. an html document or an image document, etc.) isused to group the results by so that the documents are displayed withincategories. Alternatively, using the group control 3903, the user mayselect the date parameter (to group by dates), the people parameter (togroup by people), or a flat list (no group) to achieve differentdisplays. The date parameter will list and group the documents by date,and the people parameter will list and group the documents based uponthe author of the document so that the categories will be the author ofthe document or in some other way which is based upon an identifier of aperson. The sort by control 3905 allows the user to sort within groupsto the extent that the results are displayed within groups. In theexample shown in FIG. 39, the user has selected the date parameter fromthe sort control 3905. A “when” control 3907 shows that the search inputis not restricted by date (and thus “any date” is highlighted in the“when” control 3907). Thus this control indicates a parameter as opposedto receiving an input from a user. Alternatively, the “when” control3907 may allow the user to alter the selected time period which willcause the search to be redone based upon a new time period. The “where”control 3909 shows where the search was performed. It may be the entirecomputer or remote servers or a particular partition or folder of avolume or hard drive. The “where” control 3909 may be a mere displaywhich shows the location or, alternatively, may be a control whichallows the user to change the location and thereby redo the search. Thesearch results shown in FIG. 39 are similar to the search results shownin FIG. 38 in that within each category, there are only a limited numberof documents shown in the window 3901. Thus, for example, in the“documents” category under the heading 3919, there are five files 3921which are shown within the window 3901. A clickable button 3920 showsthat there are a 145 more documents which were found by the search. Theactivation of this button will cause the display of all of the files inthis category as shown in FIGS. 40 and 41 which figuratively show, in ascrollable view, all the files within the “documents” category.Scrolling may be performed by using the scroll control 3911 a or byusing the scrolling arrows 3912 and 3913. The user may return back tothe view showing only the top 5 (top 5 most relevant files within the“documents” category) by activating either button 3935 or 3935 a shownin FIGS. 40 and 41, respectively. The files 3921 a shown in both FIGS.40 and 41 represent the complete files in the “documents” category,where the view in FIG. 40 is the top of the list within the documentscategory and the view within FIG. 41 is the bottom of the list withinthe documents category; it will be appreciated that a set of filesbetween this top and bottom is not displayed in either FIG. 40 or 41.The user can return back to showing the top 5 files within the documentscategory by selecting either button 3935 or 3935 a, thereby returning tothe view shown in FIG. 39. The user can also expand and collapse thecategories themselves to provide more space to reveal other files inother categories. An example of this is shown in FIGS. 42 and 43. InFIG. 42, the categories “AppleScript”, “documents”, “folders”, and“html” have been collapsed while the categories “images”, “PDFdocuments”, and “source code” are shown in expanded form (but in eachcase limited to the top 5 hits within each category). The expansion orcollapsing is controlled by activation of the respective toggle for eachcategory, such as the toggle 3917 a for the AppleScript category. Thehtml category is shown in a collapsed form in FIG. 42 while in FIG. 43it has been expanded by the user's activation of a toggle 3927 a.

FIG. 45 shows another aspect of at least certain embodiments in whichvolumes containing user related files are indexed prior to the userreceiving the volume. The volume may be a CD ROM containing an operatingsystem, certain user software applications and user related files. Theuser related files may include template files, reference data files(e.g. a dictionary or encyclopedia), read me files, and other relatedfiles in addition to help files. So, for example, if the volume containsa word processing application, such as Microsoft Word, the user relatedfiles may include many Word template files and other preexisting userrelated files which are accessible by the user through the use ofMicrosoft Word or another user application program. The volume mayalternatively be a magnetic hard drive which is the main boot drive of acomputer system, and the method of FIG. 45 describes a portion of themanufacturing process in which the hard drive is created with all of thenecessary operating system software as well as the user related filesand application programs for use by the user. The method of FIG. 45 maybegin in operation 4501 in which the manufacturer's system indexes alluser related files for a particular volume. The data which is indexedincludes user sample files, user template files, and metadata for thefiles. It is clear, thus, that the indexing which is performed is beyondindexing of just help files. After the index is created in operation4501, it is stored with the user related files and with the operatingsystem software on a volume. The storage process may involve a blockcopy operation to write the data to the storage volume, such as a CD ROMor a magnetic hard drive which would be the main boot drive of a newlymanufactured computer system. Then in operation 4505, the volume isdistributed to a licensee or customer. For example, the volume isdistributed as a CD ROM or a DVD disk to a licensee or customer or thecustomer of a newly manufactured computer receives the volume as amagnetic hard drive of the system which causes the system to start up byusing the operating system software on the hard drive. The pre-indexingof files prior to the user receiving the volume saves the user time.However, files may be indexed on volumes not previously indexed and theuser may be alerted of his indexing process in the manners shown inFIGS. 46 and 47.

When a volume has not been previously indexed, the user may still causethe volume to be indexed. This may happen automatically as a consequenceof attaching the volume (e.g. attaching a hard drive which is portableand which includes a USB interface to a computer system through a USBport, etc.) or as a result of the user instructing the system to do sothrough a command on a graphical user interface. In either case, it maytake some time to index the volume, and a progress bar, such as theprogress bars 4607 or 4707 may be displayed while this indexing is beingperformed. In one implementation (e.g. the example shown in FIG. 46), nosearching may be allowed while the indexing is being performed. In analternative implementation, a search of the files which have beenindexed so far may be allowed, which is the implementation shown in FIG.47. FIG. 46 shows a graphical user interface 4601 which includes a menubar 4603 and a search pull down icon 4605 which may be used to entertext into a text entry field, such as the field 4709 shown in FIG. 47.Similarly, FIG. 47 shows another graphical user interface 4701 whichincludes a menu bar 4703 and a search menu 4705 which is activated fromthe search pull down icon on the menu bar 4703.

FIG. 48 shows another aspect of certain embodiments described herein.The method shown in FIG. 48 allows a system wide search utility to passa search query to an application which created a file which was found bythe search query, to thereby allow the application to continue searchingby modifying the search query within the application. An example of thismethod may be implemented with an email program, where an email file isfound by the system wide search utility (e.g. “Spotlight”) as a resultof the search query. Opening of the email file from the search resultswindow results in launching the email program and displaying theparticular email which was found in the search results. In addition, theemail program may display the search parameters, such as the searchquery which was used to find the opened file in the system wide searchutility, and may allow the user to modify that request and searchspecifically within email files managed by the email program. The methodof FIG. 48 may begin in operation 4801 in which a search is performed inthe operating system's search software (for example, using Spotlight toperform a search), and the results of the search are displayed in asearch window, such as the search results window shown in FIG. 39. Inoperation 4803, the system receives a user selection of a particularfile in the search results window, and this results in the systemopening the application for the file and displaying the file within theapplication and also displaying a search input field within theapplication. This search input field may indicate the search query whichwas used in operation 4801. Further, the search input field may allowthe user to further modify the search query or introduce a new searchquery in operation 4807. Then the email program or other applicationprogram which was opened or launched in operation 4805 will then displaythe search results based on either a new search input or a furthersearch input within the application window itself.

FIG. 49 illustrates another aspect of certain embodiments of theinventions described herein. According to this aspect, a search menuoption generated by a window or application program is based upon thecontext of the window or application program, and the search optionallows for the execution of a system wide search through files,including files created by other applications and including searchingthrough the content as well as metadata of the files. In the exampleshown in FIG. 49, an address book program which controls the window 4901has a menu option for searching based on the context. The context maybe, as in the case of window 4901, some predetermined type ofinformation in the currently opened window. This predetermined type maybe user selectable. This menu option is activated by activating the icon4905, which may be referred to as a tool icon. The activation of thisicon results in the display of a pull down menu 4907 which includes thesearch option 4909. Since the address book is currently showing addressinformation for a person “Patrick Coffman,” the menu option 4909 allowsthe user to launch a search using the term “Patrick Coffman.” Thus, thecontext of the address book software application which controls window4901 controls, in this exemplary embodiment, the particular search termwhich is passed through, in this case, a system wide search utility,causing the display of the search result window 4903 which is shownbehind the window 4901. The search may be through content of all indexedfiles on the system and through the metadata of files (of variousdifferent file types) on the entire system or a portion of the system(e.g., specific folders). The search result window 4903 is similar tothe window 3901 shown in FIG. 39. If the software application is anemail application as opposed to an address book application, thecontextual menu 4907, which may be activated from a tool icon within theemail program, may allow for the searching using either the sender'sname or the recipient's name of a particular email which is displayedwithin the email window when the tool icon is activated to produce apull down menu which is similar to the menu 4907 shown in FIG. 49.Similarly, in a word processing application, the contextual menu, whichis similar to the menu 4907, for a particular document may allow for thesearching of the authors name, where the author is specified as metadatafor the particular file being viewed within the word processingapplication's window.

FIG. 50 shows another aspect of the present invention. According to thisaspect, text within a text processing application, such as a wordprocessing application or a text editing application or an emailapplication or a PDF processing application, may be selected, and thenafter selection, a user may cause a menu to appear or may command thesystem to perform a search through other files (e.g. of different filetypes) in the system, including other files created by other softwareprograms. Further, the search may be a search of content of the files aswell as metadata of the files. The search may be in files of selecteddirectories or through all user files in the system, as in the case of asystem wide search. An exemplary method is shown in FIG. 50 and is alsoillustrated in FIGS. 51, 52, and 53 which illustrate an exemplary userinterface. In operation 5001, the system receives a selection of textwithin an application, such as a text processing application. The text,“Greg Christie,” is shown selected in FIGS. 51, 52 and 53. The selectedtext 5103 may then be used as an input to a system wide search bycausing a menu to appear. This is shown in operation 5003 in which thesystem receives a command to display a pop-up menu which includes asearch option. There are a number of different ways to cause this menuto appear, such as right-clicking (placing a cursor over the selectedtext and pressing and releasing a mouse's right button) on the selectedtext or by pressing a combination of keys, etc. before or after the texthas been selected. Then the system, in operation 5005, receives theselection of the search option from the pop-up menu, which is shown asoption 5107 within the menu 5105 shown in FIG. 51. FIG. 52 shows thatthe option has been selected by the highlighting 5107 a. After thesystem receives the selection of the option, it performs a searchthrough the content of the indexed files and the metadata for the files.The searching occurs in the file having the selected text as well asother files created by the same application and other files which arenot created by the same application. The search results are thendisplayed in operation 5007, and an example of the display of the searchresults is shown as window 5301 in FIG. 53. Thus, a system wide searchthrough files (e.g. of various different types) and metadata for thefiles may be activated from a text processing application, such as theapplication which controls the window 5101 shown in FIGS. 51, 52 and 53which may be a text editing application or an email program or a wordprocessing application. The text processing application is, at least incertain embodiments, capable of creating a new text document (e.g. a newword processing document or a new email message) and is capable ofediting existing text documents. Further, the text processingapplication is typically capable of creating a text document whichcontains character codes (e.g. ASCII or Unicode codes) which representtext characters. The selection of text within the window of the textprocessing application may be through one of a variety of graphical userinterface techniques (e.g. dragging a cursor across the text whilepressing a button, etc.).

FIGS. 54, 55 and 56 show another aspect according to certain embodimentsof the present invention. Conventional open dialog boxes or windowsnormally provide a list view of files within a particular folder orsubfolder on a storage medium. These open dialog boxes or windowsfurther include an open button and a cancel button to allow the user toeither cancel the operation or to open the selected file. If the userneeded to perform a search in order to find a file, the user had tocancel the open operation by selecting the cancel button and then invokea searching utility to search the storage medium. According to oneaspect as described herein, certain embodiments of the present inventionprovide the ability to search a plurality of different files havingdifferent file types and different types of metadata created by the sameapplication or different software applications and to perform thatsearch within an open dialog box or open window or open panel which isused to open a file within a software program. The search functionprovided within the file open window, such as window 5401 shown in FIGS.54 and 55, may be similar to or identical to the search functionalityprovided by any one of the system wide software mechanisms describedherein, including a mechanism to search for content within files andmetadata for the files for a plurality of different softwareapplications, where the metadata is different for different types offiles. The open window 5401 includes a conventional open button 5417 anda conventional cancel button 5415. In addition, it includes a list view5411 which displays the files within a particular folder or subfolderselected by the location menu 5407. In addition, the open window 5401also includes a side bar region 5403 and a volume region 5405. The usermay enter text for a search into the text input field 5409 to cause asearch to be performed within a designated location, such as thelocation “macdesktops” as indicated in FIG. 54. Once the user enters thetext (or other search parameters such as types of files, etc. throughuser interfaces which are similar to those described herein), then thesystem will perform a search for files which match the search criteriaand display those files in a list view 5411 as shown in FIG. 55. In thisway, a file open window which is invoked from an application program mayallow a user to perform a search for files within that file open window.FIG. 56 shows an exemplary method which may be performed with such afile open window. Operation 5601 involves receiving an open file commandwithin an application, such as a word processing application or agraphics creation application. Typically, most software applicationsdesigned for use by normal consumers allow for the opening of filescreated by that application and possibly other applications. It is thisopen file command which is referred to in operation 5601. The systemresponds, in operation 5603, by displaying a file open window with asearch input option. This option may be a single text input field or atext input field in combination with additional parameters which may bedefined by a user such as the region 3600 shown in FIG. 36. In addition,in operation 5605, the user may specify a particular folder containingfiles to be opened and the system can display a list of files which canbe opened by the application which caused the file open window to bedisplayed. Then the user may enter, in operation 5607, a search inputwithin the file open window and cause the search to be performed. Theresults of the search may be displayed within the file open window inoperation 5609 and the user may complete the open operation by selectinga file within the file open window and instructing the system to openthe file by, for example, activating the open button 5417.

In certain embodiments, it may be desirable to provide the user with theability to set preferences for the searching functions provided by thevarious embodiments described herein. FIGS. 57 and 58 provide an exampleof user interfaces which allow a user to set such preferences. Thewindow 5701 shown in FIG. 57 includes a privacy button 5703 and aresults button 5705. These two buttons switch between windows 5701(which is selected when the privacy button 5703 is activated) and window5701 a (which is selected and displayed when the results button 5705 hasbeen activated). The window 5701 also includes a list 5707 whichdisplays folders and files which can be added to the list by using theadd button 5709 or which can be removed from the list by using theremove button 5711. Adding a folder to the list 5707, in certainembodiments, will prevent files contained within those folders frombeing indexed and thus they will not appear in the search results. Incertain embodiments, the metadata from these files will also not beincluded in any metadata databases so that searches through metadatawill not retrieve these files. A folder may be removed from the list5707 by selecting the folder and then selecting the remove button 5711.A folder may be added to the list 5707 by activating the add button 5709which then causes a file open window to be displayed, from which theuser can select a folder or file to be added to the list 5707. Thewindow 5701 also includes a check box 5713 which allows the user toactivate and specify a particular keyboard shortcut. The particularshortcut which is selected may be selected from the pull down menu 5715.In an alternative embodiment, adding a folder to the list 5707 does notprevent the contents of the folder from being indexed or searched, butthe contents are not displayed in the search results. In other words,the contents of folders in the list 5707 are still indexed and stillsearched, but they are not displayed in the search results (and thusthey are hidden); in a further alternative embodiment, they can becaused to be displayed by the entry of a password or code by the user.

The window 5701 a is displayed in response to activating the resultswindow 5705. This window includes a list 5800, which is a list of thevarious categories which appear in the search result windows, such asthe window of FIG. 39. The check boxes, such as check box 5801, may bechecked by a user to indicate that that particular category may appearin search results. If a check box is not selected (e.g. there is nocheck in the box), then the category will not appear in the searchresults window (however, for reasons relating to efficiency of indexing,the items within such a category will still be indexed, and searchedthrough, even though they do not appear in the search results). Theorder of the categories may be changed by dragging the categories withinthe list 5800.

FIGS. 59 and 60 show a particular embodiment in which search results aredisplayed within a Finder window, such as the Finder windows whichappear in the Macintosh OS 10.3 operating system. These Finder windowstypically include a side bar region, such as side bar region 5903 and avolume region 5905. The window 5901 also includes a location slice whichspecifies a location of the current view, such as the current viewindicator 5909 and which allows for the selection of a differentlocation. A text entry field 5907 is also provided in the upper portionof the window 5909, thereby allowing the user to enter text to be usedas a search input query. A + button 5911 may be used to add additionalsearch parameters to the search query. For example, if the + button 5911is activated, this will cause the display of an additional slice shownin FIG. 60 which has been defined by the pull down menus 5913 and 5915to specify a search for all documents of the image type. The result ofany such search is displayed within the main display portion 5910.

There are many different types of files which presently exist (e.g. wordprocessing files, spreadsheet files, presentation files, email files,html files, PDF files, various types of image files, etc.). As a result,there are many different types of data which can exist as metadata forany one type of file. This can be seen from the large table shown hereinwhich gives an example of metadata for certain types of files.Furthermore, through changes in file types, the creation of new types ofsoftware applications, and the creation of importers to input data froma file into a metadata database, it is apparent that the types ofmetadata can expand in the future. Thus, a list of metadata attributesshould be expandable, and in certain embodiments of the presentinvention, it is expandable. It may be made expandable through the useof an interface which allows for the selection of “other” metadata orsearch attributes. FIGS. 61, 62, 63, and 64 give one example of a methodfor picking metadata search attributes from an expandable list of aplurality of metadata search attributes. This expandable list may beachieved automatically by adding new importers or file sniffers whichare designed to import metadata from new types of files into a metadatadatabase and which add the metadata search attributes into a list usedby the user interface of the metadata search software. The exemplarymethod shown in FIG. 61 begins in operation 6101 in which a search inputwindow is displayed. FIGS. 62 and 64 show an exemplary search inputwindow. The window 6201 includes a side bar 6203 and a volume region6205 and also includes a text entry field 6202 into which text may beentered to cause a search to be performed based on the entered text. Inaddition, rough the use of pull down menus, such as menus 6207 and 6207a and 6209, the user may specify search input parameters. The menu 6207may be activated to reveal a list of various search attributes, such askind, last opened, last modified, created, key words, color label, name,etc. as shown in the menu 6207. In addition, the search attributes orinputs provided by menus 6207 includes the “other” option 6211. If theuser selects this option, as in operation 6103 of FIG. 61, then a listof available search attributes is displayed as panel 6301 as shown inFIG. 63. This list will typically include all available searchattributes currently supported by the system, such as those attributesprovided by importers which have been described herein as well as otherpotential mechanisms for obtaining the metadata from a file. The usermay select the particular attribute (e.g. “author” attribute) as the“other” attribute and then select the “ok” button 6305 to cause theattribute to be added into the menu 6207, forming the menu 6207 a. Themenu 6207 a now includes the authors option 6401 which the user canselect. Then the user can select from the pull down menu 6403 from alist of available authors or type in into the adjacent text entry fieldan author name to cause a search, in the case of the window of FIG. 64,for all documents which include the word “test” and which are authoredby a particular author. By being able to add additional metadata searchattributes into the list 6303, the system has an expandable list ofmetadata search attributes. This allows for an open-ended solution forfuture file types as well as future importers.

FIGS. 65 and 66 show another aspect of certain embodiments describedherein. In these embodiments, it is possible to obtain information abouta particular file. This information may be displayed within a windowsuch as the window 6501 or the window 6502 shown in FIG. 66. In oneembodiment, these windows may be displayed by selecting the particularfile and then activating a command (e.g. “Get Info” or “ShowProperties”) to obtain more information or properties about the file.The file may be shown in a list view or an icon view and may be selectedwhile in those views and then a command to obtain information or showproperties about the document may then be selected and executed. In analternative embodiment, a button, which when activated displays thesewindows (e.g. as in FIG. 65 or 66), may be placed at the rightmostcolumn of a multiple column view, such as the column view availablewithin a Finder window of the Panther operating system (Macintosh OS10.3). An example of this column view is shown in FIG. 26. When a userfile is selected in column view, the rightmost column normally containsbasic information about the file and may contain a thumbnail preview orother type of preview of the file. Activating the toggle button 6507will reveal general information, such as the information 6601 shown inFIG. 66. In addition, both windows shown in FIGS. 65 and 66 include theability to enter comments which are saved into either the index databaseor the metadata database for that particular document. In this way, auser can obtain information about a particular file and then enteradditional comments into the comment field 6503 which are then used bythe metadata processing systems described herein.

An optional privacy feature may be included with one or more of thevarious embodiments described herein. This privacy feature, if enabled,causes the system to determine that a user has stopped inputting searchqueries after a period of time (e.g. after N minutes which may be 5minutes, etc.), and if the user has stopped, the system stops updating(e.g. as in FIG. 29) the search results and may also remove the searchresults window from the display area. Thus, after a period of time thesearch query and the results of the search will be removed from thedisplay in order to protect the privacy of the user. In alternativeembodiment, the search query and the results of the search are removedfrom the display (e.g. the windows containing this information areclosed) but the updating of the search results occurs in the background(without being displayed), and this updated information may be retrievedby re-opening the pertinent windows.

At least certain embodiments of the various inventions allow for thesearching of system preference or system setting or system configurationfiles or data structures through the use of a searching utility. Forexample, a system wide searching utility may be used to search for asystem preference or system setting or system configuration file or datastructure by entering the name or a synonym of the system preference orsystem setting or system configuration file or data structure. Metadataand/or content of the system preference or system setting or systemconfiguration file or data structure may be searched by the searchingutility and cause the system preference or system setting or systemconfiguration file or data structure to be retrieved as one of thesearch results and then opened from the list of search results. In thisexemplary manner, the search utility can open a particular systempreference or system setting or system configuration file or datastructure through a search process.

At least certain embodiments of the various embodiments provideintelligent mail boxes in email software. In one exemplary embodiment,the email software includes “in boxes” or folders which contain new orreceived email and these folders or “in boxes” (or mail boxes) may beconfigured to act as smart folders to automatically search throughincoming email and segregate the email based on the saved search queriesassociated with each of the email in boxes which act in a manner whichis similar to the way smart folders act. Also see U.S. Pat. No.6,243,724 in connection with this type of email box. The email softwaremay be configured to allow multiple folders, each of which or at leastone of which may be defined as having a saved search query which isautomatically used to search through newly received emails and, if anyof the emails match the search query, the email is moved to the folderor “in box” (or the email is copied and the copy is moved to thefolder). Thus, these folders automatically move emails from a general inbox to folders or specific “in boxes” which are specified by a searchquery.

In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described withreference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evidentthat various modifications may be made thereto without departing fromthe broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in thefollowing claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to beregarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.

1. A machine implemented method comprising: displaying an open filewindow by selecting an open file command from within an applicationwhich creates files, wherein the open file window is displayed inresponse to receiving the selection of the open file command from a menuand wherein the open file window is configured to display files createdby the application; displaying a search input field to allow entry of asearch query to find a file; receiving a search query and performing asearch in a plurality of locations using the search query; displaying aresult of the search within the open file window; receiving a selectionof a first file in the result of the search; receiving a command to openthe first file in the application; displaying, in response to thecommand to open the first file, content of the first file, within anapplication window of the application.
 2. The method as in claim 1further comprising: displaying a location selector within the open filewindow and receiving a location and displaying files within thelocation, wherein the search query is used to search files within thelocation.
 3. The method as in claim 1 wherein the search input field isdisplayed in the open file window or another window.
 4. The method as inclaim 2, the method further comprising: displaying a button, which whenselected, generates the command to open the first file.
 5. The method asin claim 2 wherein the location selector is to receive a user inputwhich specifies the location.
 6. The method as in claim 1 furthercomprising: displaying a location selector within the open file window,the location selector to receive a user input to select a location andto cause a display of files in the location; displaying an open commanduser interface to receive a selection of file to be opened from a user.7. The method as in claim 6 further comprising: displaying a cancelcommand user interface to receive a cancel input from a user to causethe open file procedure to be cancelled.
 8. The method as in claim 7wherein the search input held is displayed within the open file windowand wherein the result of the search is displayed as a first view ofitems which is different from a hierarchical view based on filedirectory locations of the items.
 9. The method as in claim 8 whereinthe first view is a flat list which does not reveal hierarchy within thehierarchical view.
 10. The method as in claim 8 wherein the searchsearches through metadata for a plurality of files created by at leastone software application, and wherein the type of information inmetadata for files of a first type differs from the type of informationin metadata for files of a second type.
 11. The method as in claim 8wherein the search searches through an indexed content database for aplurality of files.
 12. The method as in claim 10 wherein the searchsearches also through an indexed content database for content of atleast some of the plurality of files.
 13. The method as in claim 12wherein the indexed content database is updated dynamically in responseto changes for the at least some of the plurality of files.
 14. Themethod as in claim 12 wherein the metadata for the plurality of files isstored as a metadata database and wherein at least one importer importsmetadata, from files of a predetermined type, into the metadatadatabase.
 15. The method as in claim 14 wherein the indexed contentdatabase is updated dynamically in response to changes for the at leastsome of the plurality of files and the first view is a view which doesnot reveal hierarchy within the hierarchical view.
 16. The method as inclaim 13 wherein the metadata for the plurality of files is stored as ametadata database and wherein at least one importer imports metadata,from files of only predetermined types, into the metadata database andwherein a file system directory maintains a relationship betweenmetadata for a file and the file.
 17. The method as in claim 16 whereinthe search input field receives the search query to search, using thesearch query, through both the metadata database and the content andwherein the open file window comprises a plurality of regions and one ofthe regions displays the result of the search.
 18. A machine readablestorage medium storing instructions which when executed cause a systemto perform a method comprising: displaying an open file window byselecting an open file command from within an application which createsfiles, wherein the open file window is displayed in response toreceiving the selection of the open file command from a menu and whereinthe open file window is configured to display files created by theapplication; displaying a search input field to allow entry of a searchquery to find a file; receiving a search query and performing a searchin a plurality of locations using the search query; displaying a resultof the search within the open file window; receiving a selection of afirst file in the result of the search; receiving a command to open thefirst file in the application; displaying, in response to the command toopen the first file, content of the selected file, within an applicationwindow of the application.
 19. The machine readable storage medium as inclaim 18, the method further comprising: displaying a location selectorwithin the open file window and receiving a location and displayingfiles within the location, wherein the search query is used to searchfiles within the location.
 20. The machine readable storage medium as inclaim 19 wherein the search input field is displayed in the open filewindow or another window.
 21. The machine readable storage medium as inclaim 19, the method further comprising: displaying a button, which whenselected, generates the command to open the first file.
 22. The machinereadable storage medium as in claim 19 wherein the location selector isto receive a user input which specifies the location.
 23. The machinereadable storage medium as in claim 18, the method further comprising:displaying a location selector within the open file window, the locationselector to receive a user input to select a location and to cause adisplay of files in the location; displaying an open command userinterface to receive a selection of file to be opened from a user. 24.The machine readable storage medium as in claim 23, the method furthercomprising: displaying a cancel command user interface to receive acancel input from a user to cause the open file procedure to becancelled.
 25. The machine readable storage medium as in claim 24wherein the search input field is displayed within the open file windowand wherein the result of the search is displayed as a first view ofitems which is different from a hierarchical view based on filedirectory locations of the items.
 26. The machine readable storagemedium as in claim 25 wherein the first view is a flat list which doesnot reveal hierarchy within the hierarchical view.
 27. The machinereadable storage medium as in claim 25 wherein the search searchesthrough metadata for a plurality of files created by at least onesoftware application, and wherein the type of information in metadatafor files of a first type differs from the type of information inmetadata for files of a second type.
 28. The machine readable storagemedium as in claim 25 wherein the search searches through an indexedcontent database for a plurality of files.
 29. The machine readablestorage medium as in claim 27 wherein the search searches also throughan indexed content database for content of at least some of theplurality of files.
 30. The machine readable storage medium as in claim29 wherein the indexed content database is updated dynamically inresponse to changes for the at least some of the plurality of files. 31.The machine readable storage medium as in claim 29 wherein the metadatafor the plurality of files is stored as a metadata database and whereinat least one importer imports metadata, from files of a predeterminedtype, into the metadata database.
 32. The machine readable storagemedium as in claim 31 wherein the indexed content database is updateddynamically in response to changes for the at least some of theplurality of files and the first view is a view which does not revealhierarchy within the hierarchical view.
 33. The machine readable storagemedium as in claim 30 wherein the metadata for the plurality of files isstored as a metadata database and wherein at least one importer importsmetadata, from files of only predetermined types, into the metadatadatabase and wherein a file system directory maintains a relationshipbetween metadata for a file and the file.
 34. The machine readablestorage medium as in claim 33 wherein the search input field receivesthe search query to search, using the search query, through both themetadata database and the content and wherein the open file windowcomprises a plurality of regions and one of the regions displays theresult of the search.
 35. A machine readable storage medium storinginstructions which when executed by a system cause the system to performa method comprising: displaying an open file window by selecting an openfile command from within an application which creates files, wherein theopen file window is displayed in response to receiving the selection ofthe open file command from a menu and wherein the open file window isconfigured to display files created by the application; displaying asearch input field in the open file window to allow entry of a searchquery to find a file; receiving a search query, from the search inputfield, and performing a search in a plurality of locations using thesearch query; displaying a result of the search; receiving a selectionof a first file in the result of the search; receiving a command to openthe first file in the application; displaying, in response to thecommand to open the first file, content of the selected file, within anapplication window of the application.
 36. The machine readable storagemedium as in claim 35, the method further comprising: displaying alocation selector within the open file window, the location selector toreceive a user input to select a location and to cause a display offiles in the location; displaying an open command user interface toreceive a selection of file to be opened from a user.
 37. The machinereadable storage medium as in claim 36, the method further comprising:displaying a cancel command user interface to receive a cancel inputfrom a user to cause the open file procedure to be cancelled.
 38. Themachine readable storage medium as in claim 37 wherein the result of thesearch is displayed within the open file window and wherein the resultof the search is displayed as a first view of items which is differentfrom a hierarchical view based on file directory locations of the items.39. The machine readable storage medium as in claim 38 wherein the firstview is a flat list which does not reveal hierarchy within thehierarchical view.
 40. The machine readable storage medium as in claim38 wherein the search searches through metadata for a plurality of filescreated by at least one software application, and wherein the type ofinformation in metadata for files of a first type differs from the typeof information in metadata for files of a second type.
 41. The machinereadable storage medium as in claim 38 wherein the search searchesthrough an indexed content database for a plurality of files.
 42. Themachine readable storage medium as in claim 40 wherein the searchsearches also through an indexed content database for content of atleast some of the plurality of files.
 43. The machine readable storagemedium as in claim 42 wherein the indexed content database is updateddynamically in response to changes for the at least some of theplurality of files.
 44. The machine readable storage medium as in claim42 wherein the metadata for the plurality of files is stored as ametadata database and wherein at least one importer imports metadata,from files of a predetermined type, into the metadata database.
 45. Themachine readable storage medium as in claim 44 wherein the indexedcontent database is updated dynamically in response to changes for theat least some of the plurality of files and the first view is a viewwhich does not reveal hierarchy within the hierarchical view.
 46. Themachine readable storage medium as in claim 43 wherein the metadata forthe plurality of files is stored as a metadata database and wherein atleast one importer imports metadata, from files of only predeterminedtypes, into the metadata database and wherein a file system directorymaintains a relationship between metadata for a file and the file. 47.The machine readable storage medium as in claim 46 wherein the searchinput field receives the search query to search, using the search query,through both the metadata database and the content and wherein the openfile window comprises a plurality of regions and one of the regionsdisplays the result of the search.
 48. A data processing systemcomprising: a display device; a user input device; a memory; a processorcoupled to the display device and to the user input device and to thememory, the memory to store a plurality of files, and wherein theprocessor is configured to display an open file window by selecting anopen file command from within an application which creates files andwherein the open file window is displayed in response to receiving theselection of the open file command from a menu and wherein the open filewindow is configured to display files created by the application and todisplay a search input field in the open file window to allow entry of asearch query to find a file and to receive a search query, from thesearch input field, and to perform a search in a plurality of locationsusing the search query and to display a result of the search andreceive, in the open file window, a selection of a first file in theresult of the search and receive a command to open the first file in theapplication and to display, in response to the command to open the firstfile, content of the selected file, within an application window of theapplication.
 49. The data processing system as in claim 48 wherein thememory is to store metadata for the plurality of files and is to store acontent database for the plurality of files and the search is throughthe metadata and the content database.
 50. The data processing system asin claim 49 wherein the type of information in metadata for files of afirst type differs from the type of information in metadata for files ofa second type.
 51. The data processing system as in claim 50 wherein theresult of the search is displayed as a first view of items which isdifferent from a hierarchical view based on file directory locations ofthe items.
 52. A data processing system comprising: a display device; auser input device; a memory; a processor coupled to the display deviceand to the user input device and to the memory, the memory to store aplurality of files, and wherein the processor is configured to displayan open file window by selecting an open file command from within anapplication which creates files and wherein the open file window isdisplayed in response to receiving the selection of the open filecommand from a menu and wherein the open file window is configured todisplay files created by the application and to display a search inputfield to allow entry of a search query to find a file and to receive asearch query, from the search input field, and to perform a search in aplurality of locations using the search query and to display a result ofthe search within the open file window and receive, in the open filewindow, a selection of a first file in the result of the search andreceive a command to open the first file in the application and todisplay, in response to the command to open the first file, content ofthe selected file, within an application window of the application. 53.The data processing system as in claim 52 wherein the memory is to storemetadata for the plurality of files and is to store a content databasefor the plurality of files and the search is through the metadata andthe content database.
 54. The data processing system as in claim 53wherein the type of information in metadata for files of a first typediffers from the type of information in metadata for files of a secondtype.
 55. The data processing system as in claim 54 wherein the resultof the search is displayed as a first view of items which is differentfrom a hierarchical view based on file directory locations of the items.